JPH0454046Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] (Field of industrial application) The present invention relates to an airbag device that prevents a secondary collision of occupants by using an airbag that expands and deploys during a vehicle collision. This invention relates to an air bag device in which an opening of a storage body is closed by a lid that is pushed open when the air bag is inflated and deployed.

(Prior Art) Airbag devices have come to be used as an occupant protection device for restraining an occupant in a seated position during a vehicle collision. This airbag device folds and stores an airbag in a storage body installed in the steering wheel, instrument panel, etc. located in front of the passenger, and when a vehicle collision is detected, high-pressure gas is introduced into the airbag. By doing so, the airbag is rapidly inflated and deployed toward the occupant, and the forward movement of the occupant is restricted.

In such an air bag device, the storage body for storing the air bag is usually in the shape of a container with one end open. The opening is then closed by a lid. The lid body is adapted to be pushed open by the inflation pressure of the air bag when the air bag is inflated and deployed.

It is desirable that such a lid body does not come off the storage body and scatter even when the airbag is inflated and deployed. Therefore, it has been proposed that the lid be formed by a lid that is hinged to the side of the opening of the storage body. In that case, if the entire opening of the storage body is covered with one lid, the turning radius of the tip of the lid becomes large, and it is necessary to secure a large space to allow the turning. Therefore, the lid body is generally made up of two lids that are separated from the center and open in the form of double doors.

When such a lid is made of two lids, conventionally the tips, or free edges, of each lid are simply butted against each other, or as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,778,085. It was assumed that they were simply superimposed.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) By the way, the air bag storage body is installed so as to open toward the interior of the vehicle. Therefore, the lid that closes the opening faces the passenger compartment. Particularly in the case of an air bag device for a passenger in a front passenger seat, the air bag storage body is often provided in the instrument panel.
Moreover, the air bag storage body may be opened at the top of the instrument panel. In such a case, the lid that closes the opening forms part of the upper surface of the instrument panel. Therefore, if heavy objects are placed on the lid or other objects come into contact with the lid,
A large force may be applied to the lid body from the outside.

On the other hand, the opening of the airbag storage body cannot be provided with a supporting part such as a crosspiece that crosses the opening. Therefore, when the opening is closed with a lid consisting of a pair of double-gate lids as described above, it is not possible to support the free ends of the lids from the inside. Furthermore, since such lids are generally made of resin, their rigidity is relatively low.

For this reason, in a lid body in which the adjacent free ends of a pair of lids are simply butted against each other or simply overlapped, as in the conventional lid body described above,
When a pressing force is applied from the outside, it is impossible to prevent the lid from curving inward and deforming. When the lid is deformed in this way, the appearance is impaired and repair becomes difficult.

The present invention was developed in view of these problems, and its purpose is to prevent the pair of lids that close the opening of the air bag storage body from being deformed even by pressure applied from the outside. The goal is to be supported.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve this object, in the present invention, on the adjacent free ends of the pair of lids constituting the lid body,
Engaging portions are provided that can engage with each other and resist tensile force in a direction perpendicular to the free end sides.

(Function) When pressure is applied to the lid from the outside,
As the lid attempts to curve inward, a tensile force is generated in the lid in a direction perpendicular to its free end. Therefore, by configuring as described above, the tensile force is supported by the engaging portions of each lid that engage with each other, and the curved deformation toward the inside of the lid is prevented. .

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described using the drawings.

In the drawings, Figures 1 and 2 show an embodiment of the air bag device according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an opening and a lid of the storage body of the air bag device.

As is clear from FIG. 1, between the defroster duct 3 and the ventilation duct 4, there is a A recess 5 that opens on the top surface is provided. The instrument panel 1 is made of a foamed resin such as foamed polyurethane, and its surface is covered with a thin skin, and a reinforcing plate 6 is embedded around the recess 5 of the instrument panel 1.

An air bag device 7 is accommodated in the recess 5 of the instrument panel 1. This air bag device 7 includes an air bag storage body 9 having an opening 8 on the upper end surface, and a lid body 1 that closes the opening 8.
0. The air bag storage body 9 is in the form of an airtight container, and a gas generator 11 and an air bag 12 are installed inside the air bag storage body 9. The gas generator 11 is designed to eject high-pressure gas into the airbag storage body 9 when the vehicle suddenly decelerates, such as during a collision. The air bag 12 is a bag-shaped bag made of an airtight and flexible base fabric such as rubberized cloth, and the peripheral edge of its opening is hermetically joined to the peripheral edge of the opening 8 of the storage body 9, and the air bag 12 is in a folded state. storage body 9
It is stored inside.

This air bag storage body 9 includes a reinforcing plate 6 that reinforces the periphery of the recess 5 of the instrument panel 1, and an inter-pillar pipe 13 that extends in the left-right direction of the vehicle body.
It is designed to be fixed to and supported by. In the attached state, the flange 14 provided around the entire circumference of the opening 8 of the storage body 9
is supported by a step 15 formed around the opening of the recess 5 of the instrument panel 1.

As shown in FIG. 2, the opening of the recess 5 is approximately rectangular. The lid 10 is fitted into the opening, and the entire periphery of the lid 10 is supported by the flange 14 of the storage body 9. As is clear from FIGS. 1 and 2, the lid body 10 has two front and rear parts made of hard resin such as ABS resin.
two thin plates 16, 17 and a pad 1 covering the top surface thereof
8. The pad 18 is made of foamed resin similar to the instrument panel 1 and is relatively thin, and its surface is covered with a skin that is easily torn. In this way, the lid body 10
is flush with the top surface of the instrument panel 1 and has similar properties.

The front thin plate 16 and the rear thin plate 17 constituting the lid body 10 are provided with thin portions along the front edge base and rear edge base, respectively, and hinges 19 and 20 are formed by the thin portions. ing. and,
The front base and the rear base of the hinges 19 and 20 are firmly fixed to the opposing front and rear sides of the flange 14 of the air bag storage body 9 by adhesive or the like, respectively. In this way, the thin plates 16 and 17 covering the opening 8 of the storage body 9 have hinges 1 on opposite sides of the opening 8, that is, the front side and the rear side.
Lid 2 rotatably connected via 9 and 20
It is said to be 1.22.

The front lid 21 is wider in the front-rear direction than the rear lid 22. The rear edge of the front lid 21, that is, the free edge, is
It is arranged to be adjacent to the front end side which is the free end side of the lid 22 on the rear side. At the rear end side of the front lid 21, an engaging protrusion 23 is provided which projects downward, except for the left and right sides thereof. Furthermore, an engagement recess 24 whose upper surface is open is provided on the front end side of the rear lid 22, except for the left and right sides thereof. These engagement protrusions 23 and engagement recesses 24 engage with each other, and both the relative movement forward of the rear edge of the front lid 21 and the relative movement rearward of the front edge of the rear lid 22 are restricted. It is becoming more and more common. That is, the engaging projections 23 and the engaging recesses 24 are capable of resisting the tensile force in the direction perpendicular to the free end sides of the respective lids 21 and 22.

Next, the air bag device 7 configured as described above will be explained.
The effect of this will be explained.

Normally, the air bag device 7 is held in the state shown in FIG. In this state,
The entire periphery of the lid 10 is supported from below by a flange 14 provided around the entire periphery of the opening 8 of the air bag storage body 9. Therefore, each lid 21, 22 is supported by the flange 14 on three sides excluding its free end. Further, the free end side of the wide front lid 21 is connected to the engagement recess 2 provided on the free end side of the narrow rear lid 22.
4 from the bottom side.

In this state, for example, suppose that a strong force is applied to the center of the front lid 21 from above. Then,
The lid 21 attempts to rotate downward. However, the lid 21 is supported at its free end by the rear lid 22. The rear lid 22 has a narrow width and is supported by the flanges 14 on three sides. Furthermore, the rigidity is increased due to the shape effect of the engagement recess 24.
Therefore, the free end of the front lid 21 is supported with sufficient rigidity from the lower surface side. Furthermore, the remaining three sides of the front lid 21 excluding the free end side are also supported by the flange 14. Therefore, downward rotation of the lid 21 is reliably restricted.

As a result, the lid 21 tends to deform so that its central portion curves downward. Then, a tensile force is generated that tends to pull the rear end of the lid 21 forward. However, this tensile force is resisted by the engagement between the engagement protrusion 23 and the engagement recess 24 of each lid 21, 22. Therefore, forward movement of the rear end of the lid 21 is restricted. That is, curved deformation of the lid 21 is prevented.

When a pressing force is applied to the rear lid 22 from above, the downward curvature of its free end cannot be restricted by the front lid 21; Since the lid 22 has high rigidity and is supported on three sides, the lid 22 will not be deformed unless an extremely large force is applied.

In this way, the lid 10 has extremely high rigidity against pressing force from above.

When a vehicle collides, high-pressure gas is ejected from the gas generator 11 and fills the air bag storage body 9. Therefore, due to the pressure, air bag 1
2 is pushed up and comes into contact with the lids 21 and 22. Then, an upward pressing force is applied to the lids 21 and 22. In that case, the pressing force applied to the front lid 21, which has a larger area, is greater than the pressing force applied to the rear lid 22, which has a smaller area.
As a result, the front lid 21 first rotates upward about the hinge 19, and then the rear lid 21 rotates upward about the hinge 19.
2 rotates upward around the hinge 20. Therefore, there is no effect due to the engagement between the engagement protrusion 23 and the engagement recess 24.

During this time, the pad 18 is connected to the lid 21,
Due to the tensile force caused by the rotation of lids 21 and 22,
It breaks from the adjacent free end portion of 2. In this way, the lid 10 is pushed open by the inflation pressure of the air bag 12. Then, the air bag 12 continues to expand due to the high pressure gas flowing into its interior.
After protruding from the opening 8 of the opened storage body 9, it is guided by the front lid 21 and windshield 25, expands and deploys toward the rear, and comes into contact with the passenger in the passenger seat to restrict the passenger's forward movement. . The opening of the lid 10 and the inflation and deployment of the air bag 12 are as follows:
It actually happens instantly.

In this way, it is possible to obtain an air bag device 7 having a lid 10 that has high rigidity when closed and is easily pushed open when the air bag 12 is inflated and deployed.

In the above embodiment, the engaging protrusion 23 and the engaging recess 24 are provided only at the center of the free end sides of the lids 21 and 22, so that the entire periphery of the lid 10 is flat. As shown in FIG. 3, notch-shaped grooves 26, 26 are provided on both left and right sides of the flange 14 of the air bag storage body 9, and the lower surface of the engagement recess 24 is fitted into and supported by the grooves 26, 26. If this is done, the engagement protrusion 23 and the engagement recess 24 can extend over the entire length of the lids 21 and 22 in the left and right direction. By doing so, the engaging protrusion 23 and the engaging recess 2 have high rigidity.
4 itself comes to be supported by the flange 14, the support rigidity of the lid body 10 can be further increased.

Further, in the above embodiment, the front lid 21 is wider than the rear lid 22 in the front-rear direction, but the widths may be approximately the same. Even if you do that, each lid 21, 2
Since the width of the lid 2 is sufficiently smaller than the width of the opening 8, sufficient rigidity of each lid 21, 22 is ensured. The lids 21 and 22 are also not limited to being provided before and after the opening 8, and may be provided on the left and right sides.

Furthermore, the engaging portions provided on the free end sides of the lids 21 and 22 are not limited to the engaging protrusion 23 and the engaging recess 24 as in the above embodiment, but may also be an engaging portion protruding perpendicularly from one lid. It can also be configured by a dowel pin and an engagement hole into which the dowel pin fits.

Although the air bag device 7 attached to the upper surface of the instrument panel 1 has been described, the present invention can also be applied to air bag devices attached to the lid of the glove box 2, the steering wheel, etc.

(Effects of the invention) As is clear from the above explanation, according to the present invention, the lid body that closes the opening of the air bag storage body can be
It is composed of a pair of lids whose free end sides are adjacent to each other, and the free end sides of each lid are provided with engaging portions that engage with each other and resist tensile force. It can be made to have sufficiently high rigidity against pressing force from the outside while being able to rotate on a dynamic radius. Therefore, even if the opening of the air bag storage body is provided on the surface of the instrument panel, etc.
Since the lid body is not deformed by external force, a good appearance can be maintained.

Additionally, if a flange is provided around the opening of the airbag storage body to support the entire periphery of the lid, each lid will be supported on three sides by the flange, increasing the support strength of each lid. The rigidity against deformation can be further increased.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of an air bag device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of an instrument panel equipped with the air bag device.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an opening of an air bag storage body in the air bag device and a lid covering it. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a modified example of the opening of the air bag storage body. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Instrument panel, 7... Air bag device, 8... Opening, 9... Air bag storage body, 10... Lid body, 11... Gas generator, 12...
...Air bag, 14...Flange, 19,20...
...hinge, 21, 22...lid, 23...engaging protrusion (engaging part), 24...engaging recess (engaging part).

Claims (1)

[Scope of claim for utility model registration] (1) An airbag storage body with one end open, and an airbag storage body that is stored in a folded state within the storage body,
an air bag that is inflated and deployed by gas introduced into the interior; and a lid that closes an opening of the storage body and is pushed open by the air bag when the air bag is inflated and deployed; is constituted by a pair of lids rotatably supported on opposite sides of the opening of the storage body, and the lids are engaged with adjacent free end sides of the lids to open their free ends. An airbag device that is provided with an engaging part that can resist tensile force in a direction perpendicular to the sides. (2) The air bag device according to claim 1, wherein a flange supporting the periphery of the lid body is provided around the entire circumference of the opening of the storage body.