JP2533267Y2 - Car front body structure - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle body front structure.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, a wheel apron which constitutes both sides of a vehicle body front portion has a front end portion provided on a shroud upper panel laterally provided at a vehicle body front portion and a rear end portion provided with a dash upper which constitutes a vehicle compartment front portion. In addition to being supported by the panel, the suspension tower is arranged in the middle position and the lifting load is input from the suspension tower, so it is necessary to secure sufficient rigidity especially at this part For example, problems such as an increase in the vibration of the wheel apron and a decrease in the durability arise. For this reason, conventionally, it is common to provide an apron reinforcement at the upper edge of a wheel apron, which extends in the vehicle front-rear direction along the wheel apron and whose front and rear ends are coupled to the shroud upper panel and the dash upper panel. (For example, see Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 2-96365).

[0003]

On the other hand, in an automobile, there is an idea that a crash load is absorbed by crushing a front portion of a vehicle body at the time of a frontal collision to protect an occupant. It is necessary to prevent the suspension tower from being displaced backward and the dash upper panel located at the rear side of the vehicle body or the cowl box formed at the upper end of the dash upper panel from being deformed toward the passenger compartment, For this purpose, it is required that the crushing caused by the collision be caused at least at a position forward of the suspension tower.

Accordingly, from the viewpoint of improving the collision force absorbing performance of the vehicle body, it is sufficient to reduce the rigidity of the apron reinforcement at a position forward of the vehicle body from the suspension tower as much as possible. However, the purpose of providing the apron reinforcement, which is to increase the rigidity against the thrust load from the suspension tower by providing the apron reinforcement, is undesirably lost.

[0005] The most common method for satisfying such conflicting requirements is to adjust the rigidity of the apron reinforcement itself in each part, and to compare the rigidity in a part which receives a thrust load from the suspension tower. It is conceivable that the rigidity of the apron reinforcement is relatively low in the part related to the collapse at the time of collision, but in practice, it is not possible to finely adjust the thickness or cross-sectional shape of this apron reinforcement in each part. It is extremely difficult to implement the apron reinforcement because of its formability and restrictions on the vehicle body design. For this reason, at present, either one of securing the collision force absorption performance and maintaining the rigidity against the thrust load is emphasized. Tend to

[0006] Therefore, the present invention aims at achieving a balance between the effect of suppressing vibration and noise and the performance of absorbing a collision force by adjusting the rigidity of the apron reinforcement using a reinforcing member in accordance with the required level, thereby achieving a balance. The purpose is to make the car body structure clear.

[0007]

According to the present invention, as a specific means for solving the above-mentioned problem, the vehicle body extends in the front-rear direction on both sides of the front part of the vehicle body, and an intermediate position in the front-rear direction is directed upward. The suspension tower is convexly curved, and the suspension tower is located on the rear side of the vehicle body with respect to the curved portion of the apron reinforcement, the front end of which is fixed to the vehicle body front member, and the rear end thereof is fixed to the vehicle compartment front member. In the front body structure of the placed automobile, a front reinforcing member having a predetermined length in the vehicle front-rear direction is provided at a position near the curved portion of the apron reinforcement, and a rear reinforcing member is provided at a position rearward of the vehicle body from the suspension tower. While each of the members is attached, the rigidity of the predetermined portion of the front reinforcing member is appropriately reduced, and the apron reinforcement is appropriately reduced. It is characterized by moderately reducing the stiffness of the portion corresponding to the front reinforcing member.

[0008]

According to the present invention, a front reinforcing member is disposed at a position near a curved portion located on the front side of the vehicle body from the suspension tower of the apron reinforcement, and a rear reinforcing member is disposed at a position rearward of the vehicle body from the suspension tower. On the front reinforcing member side, the rigidity of the front reinforcing member is appropriately reduced, and the rigidity of a portion of the apron reinforcement corresponding to the front reinforcing member is also appropriately reduced. In the curved part of the apron reinforcement (that is, the part which is likely to be crushed by the collision load at the time of a frontal collision from the load transmission direction and where it is desired to cause the crushing positively), the plate thickness or the cross section on the apron reinforcement side The rigidity can be easily reduced by the front reinforcing member without significantly changing the shape, etc. It can be set to near optimum state with respect to upward thrust load from Pension tower.

Therefore, when an impact load is input from the tip of the apron reinforcement in a direction substantially parallel to the ground, the impact load acts on the curved portion in a direction of bending the curved portion, and the curved portion acts on the curved portion. Under the impact load, it is easily collapsed and deformed, whereby the impact load is effectively absorbed and alleviated.

Further, when the suspension tower retreats or tilts inward in the engine room under the collision load at the time of the head-on collision, the above-mentioned bent portion is not sufficiently crushed, and a so-called crushed portion is left. Although it is conceivable that this may lead to a decrease in the collision force absorbing performance, such a situation can be dealt with by reinforcing the rear side of the vehicle body of the suspension tower with a rear reinforcing member.

On the other hand, in normal times, the rigidity of the curved portion is appropriately adjusted by the front reinforcing member, so that the vibration of the apron reinforcement due to the thrust load from the suspension tower or the generation of noise accompanying this is effective. Will be suppressed.

[0012]

Therefore, according to the front body structure of the vehicle of the present invention, the front reinforcing member is provided at the curved portion located on the vehicle body front side with respect to the suspension tower mounting portion of the apron reinforcement. By adjusting the rigidity of the apron reinforcement, the rigidity of the apron reinforcement can be easily and finely adjusted without greatly changing the plate thickness or the sectional shape of the apron reinforcement itself. The effect of achieving both the securing of the absorption performance and the effect of suppressing the vibration of the wheel apron due to the thrust load or the noise associated therewith can be obtained.

Further, since the rearward position of the vehicle body is reinforced with a rear reinforcing member from the suspension tower of the apron reinforcement to prevent the suspension tower from retreating at the time of a collision, the suspension at the time of a frontal collision is prevented. This has the effect of eliminating the remaining collapse on the front side of the vehicle body from the tower, and ensuring higher collision force absorption performance.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIGS. 1 to 3 show a front of a vehicle body 1 of an automobile having a front body structure according to an embodiment of the present invention. A right side portion is shown, and in each figure, reference numeral 2 denotes a wheel apron which forms a side wall of the engine room 41 at the front of the vehicle body. An apron reinforcement 3, which will be described later, is provided on the upper end edge of the wheel apron 2, and a suspension tower 4 is provided at a position on the rear side of the vehicle body with respect to a center part in the vehicle front-rear direction, with the apron reinforcement 3 and the suspension tower 4. It is attached in a state of straddling between. Reference numeral 5 denotes a front pillar, and reference numeral 6 denotes a dash upper panel that defines an engine room 41 and a vehicle room 42.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, the front half 2a of the wheel apron 2 has a vertical wall portion 21 and the vertical wall portion 2.
1 is formed in a substantially L-shaped cross section including a horizontal wall portion 22 extending from the lower end portion to the engine room 41 side, and a rear half portion thereof is a tire house portion 23 swelled toward the engine room 41 side. ing. The upper end edge of the wheel apron 2 is curved downward at a position near the front end of the tire house 23, and is inclined downward from the front end to the front end. The suspension tower 4 is mounted so as to be located substantially at the center of the tire house 23. The lower end of the wheel apron 2 is fixed to a front side frame 8 extending in the front-rear direction on the side of the vehicle body.

The apron reinforcement 3 is
As shown in FIGS. 1 to 6, the upper plate 31 is attached along the upper edge of the wheel apron 2 and extends over the entire length of the wheel apron 2.
And a lower plate 32 disposed only on the rear side of the curved portion (ie, on the rear side of the tire house portion 23).
The rear half thereof has a closed cross-sectional configuration including the upper plate 31 and the lower plate 32. Then, the upper plate 31 of the apron reinforcement 3 is fitted to the tire house portion 2 so as to follow the shape of the upper edge of the wheel apron 2.
3 at a portion corresponding to the front portion, and extends substantially straight down to the front end portion 3a in the downward direction. (The curved portion of the upper plate 31 is described in the claims of the utility model registration. Correspondingly, this is hereinafter referred to as a curved portion 3c of the apron reinforcement 3). The front end 3a of the apron reinforcement 3 is connected to a shroud upper panel 7 provided at the front end of the vehicle body in the vehicle width direction.

The curved portion 3c of the apron reinforcement 3 is a portion which is most likely to be crushed and deformed by receiving a collision load at the time of a head-on collision of the vehicle, and a portion where it is desired to actively generate crushing. For this reason, it is desirable to reduce the rigidity of the wheel apron 2 as much as possible. This is where conflicting demands are made to maintain high rigidity from the viewpoint of minimizing noise generation as much as possible. In this case, as described above, it is very difficult to adjust the rigidity of the apron reinforcement 3 (that is, the upper plate 31) by making the cross-sectional shape or the plate thickness of the apron reinforcement 3 different from that of the other portions in the production or the like. It is on the street.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the present invention is applied to the upper plate 31 in the curved portion 3c.
The rigidity of the upper plate 31 is reduced by a method as described below, and a front-side reinforcing member 10 described below, which is appropriately adjustable in rigidity, is disposed here, without largely changing the basic shape and the like of the upper plate 31. The rigidity of the curved portion 3c is set to such a value that it can be easily crushed and deformed at the time of a frontal collision, and at the same time, provides a good supporting rigidity with respect to a thrust load.

First, on the apron reinforcement 3 side, as shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, an appropriate number of beads 33, 33,. , And an appropriate number of notches 35, 35,... Are formed in an appropriate arrangement, respectively, so that the rigidity of the upper plate 31 in the curved portion 3c is made different from that of the other portions. It is moderately reduced.

On the other hand, as shown in FIGS. 4, 5 and 7, the front reinforcing member 10 is a plate of a predetermined length having a substantially L-shaped cross section which matches the cross section of the upper plate 31. It is composed of one body. The front reinforcing member 10 adjusts its own rigidity so that the required rigidity can be obtained as a whole in the combined state of the two by appropriately compensating for the decrease in rigidity on the upper plate 31 side. Specifically, a plurality of notches 13, 13,... Are formed at the outer edge of the upper surface 11, and a plurality of notches 14, 14,. A plurality of holes 15, 15, ... are formed. By appropriately setting the size or the number of the beads 33, 33, etc., the rigidity of the curved portion 3c in the state where the front reinforcing member 10 is assembled can be increased to a required size. That can be consistently matched.

The front reinforcing member 1 whose rigidity has been adjusted as described above.
0 denotes the upper plate 31 and the lower plate 31 at the rear end side of the curved portion 3c (that is, the portion having a closed cross-sectional structure formed by the upper plate 31 and the lower plate 32), as shown in FIGS. In a state sandwiched between the plates 32 (see FIG. 5), the upper plate 3
In the open cross-sectional configuration part by only 1, it is mounted and fixed in a state of being abutted against the lower side of the upper plate 31 (see FIG. 4).

By adjusting the rigidity at the curved portion 3c of the apron reinforcement 3 in this manner, a chain line is shown in FIG.
As a result, the apron reinforcement 3 easily collapses and deforms in a substantially Z-shape at the curved portion 3c,
While the collision load can be effectively absorbed and alleviated, the stiffness of the wheel apron 2 can be maintained at an appropriate level in normal times, and the vibration caused by the thrust load from the suspension tower 4 or the noise generated thereby can be suppressed as much as possible. Things.

On the other hand, even if the rigidity of the curved portion 3c of the apron reinforcement 3 is appropriately adjusted as described above, the suspension tower 4 may be displaced backward due to a collision load, or may be displaced toward the engine room 41. If it is tilted and displaced, not only the curved portion 3c of the apron reinforcement 3 remains crushed, so that sufficient collision force absorbing performance cannot be obtained, and in some cases, the cabin 4
As described above, it is conceivable that the occupants on the two sides may be adversely affected.

For this reason, in this embodiment, the present invention is applied in order to reduce the remaining uncrushed portion of the curved portion 3c at the time of the frontal collision as much as possible and to ensure the reliability of the collision force absorbing performance. At the rear end 3b of the apron reinforcement 3, a rear reinforcing member 9 composed of a bent plate body as shown in FIG. 8 is disposed, whereby the apron reinforcement 3 and the wheel apron are arranged. 2 and the dash upper panel 6 are firmly connected to increase the support rigidity on the rear side of the suspension tower 4, so that the suspension tower 4 retreats or leans toward the engine room 41 in the event of a collision. To ensure that the Therefore, the obstructive effect of the curved portion 3c of the apron reinforcement 3 on the collision force absorption performance due to the retreat of the engine room 41 or the like is eliminated, and a higher level of collision force absorption performance is ensured.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front perspective view of a vehicle having a front vehicle body structure according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a view taken in the direction of arrows II in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a view taken in the direction of arrows II-II in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a vertical sectional view taken along the line IV-IV in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a vertical sectional view taken along a line VV in FIG. 3;

6 is a vertical sectional view taken along the line VI-VI in FIG. 3;

FIG. 7 is an enlarged perspective view of the front reinforcing member shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 is an enlarged perspective view of the rear reinforcing member shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 is a car body, 2 is a wheel apron, 3 is an apron reinforcement, 4 is a suspension tower, 5 is a front pillar, 6 is a dash upper panel, 7 is a shroud upper panel, 8 is a front side frame, 9
Is a rear reinforcing member, 10 is a front reinforcing member, 11 is an upper surface of the front reinforcing member, 12 is a side surface of the front reinforcing member, and 13 and 14.
Is a notch, 15 is a hole, 31 is an upper plate, 32 is a lower plate, 34 is an upper plate, and 35 is a notch.

Claims (1)

(57) [Scope of request for utility model registration] 1. A vehicle body extending in the front-rear direction on both sides of a front portion of a vehicle body, and an intermediate position in the front-rear direction curves upwardly in a convex shape. A front body structure of an automobile in which a suspension tower is disposed at a position rearward of the vehicle body with respect to the curved portion of the apron reinforcement whose ends are fixed to the vehicle front member, respectively, wherein the apron reinforcement is A front reinforcing member having a predetermined length in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle body is attached to a position near the bending portion, and a rear reinforcing member is mounted at a position rearward of the vehicle body from the suspension tower. And the stiffness of the portion of the apron reinforcement corresponding to the front reinforcing member is appropriately reduced. Vehicle body structure.