JPH11255068A - Air belt device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the feeling of the belt of an air belt device. SOLUTION: A part of a shoulder belt 6 in the air belt device for contact with the chest of an occupant is made of a tube-shaped inflatable rubber bag 12, a webbing 13 that covers the bag 12 to produce tensile force at a vehicle collision, and a pad 28 that covers the webbing 13. The pad 28 has a three- layered structure comprising the outermost layer of a pleasant-to-touch raised fabric 29, for example moquette, the intermediate layer of an elastic urethane sheet 30 and the innermost layer of a ground fabric 31 for protecting the urethane sheet 30. The pad 28 is provided with longitudinal cuts 281 , which are connected by an elastic member 32 of a band-shaped rubber sheet sewed over them with seams 33. At a vehicle collision, the bag 12 first inflates and this inflation pressure in turn expands the webbing 13, elongates the elastic member 32 and further expands the pad 28, which allows the total inflation of the shoulder belt 6.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an air belt device for inflating a belt for restraining an occupant to a seat at the time of a vehicle collision with gas supplied from an inflator.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A bag is stored inside a seat belt,
An air belt device that inflates the bag at the time of a vehicle collision to softly restrain an occupant is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-5600.
No. 1 has already known this.

[0003]

The belt of such an air belt device is composed of an outer webbing and an inner bag, and the webbing increases in diameter following the inflation of the bag and can simultaneously contract in the longitudinal direction. Has a warp knit mesh structure. Therefore, the surface of the webbing is rough and coarse, and the feeling when the upper portion of the shoulder belt directly hits the occupant's neck without passing through clothes is not always preferable.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to improve the feel of a belt of an air belt device.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a bag is housed inside a webbing that restrains an occupant in a seat, and an inflator is generated when a vehicle collides. In an air belt device for inflating the bag with gas, a surface of the webbing is covered with a protective material.

According to the above configuration, since the surface of the webbing of the air belt device is covered with the protective material, the feel of the webbing in contact with the occupant is improved, and the occupant's uncomfortable feeling when wearing the air belt device can be reduced. .

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the configuration of the first aspect, the protective member includes a band-shaped elastic body extending in the longitudinal direction thereof. The protection member is made to follow the expansion of the webbing by the extension of the webbing.

According to the above construction, even if the protective member is made of an inextensible material, the belt-like elastic body extending in the longitudinal direction of the protective member extends, thereby protecting the bag and the webbing following the expansion of the bag and the webbing. The material can be expanded.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described based on embodiments of the present invention shown in the accompanying drawings.

FIGS. 1 to 6 show an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a side view of a front seat portion of a vehicle, FIG. 2 is a view in the direction of arrow 2 in FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 4 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 4-4 of FIG. 3, FIG. 5 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 5-5 of FIG. 3, and FIG. 6 is a transverse sectional view of the expanded shoulder belt.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, an air belt device for restraining an occupant (driver in the embodiment) to a front right seat 1 includes a shoulder belt retractor 3 provided below a center pillar 2, A lap belt retractor 4 provided below the shoulder belt retractor 3, a shoulder belt 6 pulled out from the shoulder belt retractor 3 and extending via a slip guide 5 provided above the center pillar 2, A lap belt 7 pulled out from the belt retractor 4,
A tongue device 8 fixed to the ends of the shoulder belt 6 and the lap belt 7, a buckle device 9 fixed to a seat base 10 made of a seat frame or a slide rail, and a buckle device 9 to which the tongue device 8 is connected. And an inflator 11 provided integrally.

The well-known shoulder belt retractor 3 and lap belt retractor 4 rewind the shoulder belt 6 and the lap belt 7, respectively, so that an acceleration sensor (not shown) detects acceleration equal to or higher than a predetermined value. At normal times, the belts 6 and 7 can be pulled out to allow the movement of the occupant's body. When the acceleration sensor detects an acceleration equal to or more than a predetermined value during a vehicle collision, the belts 6 and 7 cannot be pulled out. It locks and restrains the occupants. Known inflator 1
1 ignites when the acceleration sensor detects acceleration equal to or higher than a predetermined value, and generates high-pressure gas by combustion of the propellant.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 5, the lap belt 7 is formed of a plain synthetic fiber plain woven belt. On the other hand, a portion of the shoulder belt 6 that contacts the occupant's chest is a cylindrical inflatable rubber bag 1.
2, the webbing 13 that covers the outside and generates tension when a vehicle collides, and the pad 28 that further covers the outside. The pad 28 constitutes the protective material of the present invention. Normally, the shoulder belt 6 has a flat band shape, but when gas is supplied from the inflator 11 to the bag 12, the shoulder belt 6 expands to the state shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 and softly restrains the occupant. When the webbing 13 made of a warp knit expands in the radial direction with the inflation of the bag 12, it contracts in the longitudinal direction by that amount to generate initial tension on the shoulder belt 6.

The pad 28 has a three-layer structure. The outermost layer is made of a soft raised cloth 29 such as a moquette, the intermediate layer is made of a urethane sheet 30 having elasticity, and the innermost layer protects the urethane sheet 30. And a base cloth 31 for use. The pad 28 has cuts 28 ₁ , 28 extending in the longitudinal direction.
Has a _1, the cut 28 _1, 28 ₁ made of a strip-shaped rubber sheet so as to connect the elastic member 32 is sewn 3
3, 33. Normally, the elastic body 32 is covered on the inside of the pad 28, so that the appearance of the elastic body 32 is prevented from being deteriorated due to exposure.

As is clear from FIG. 4, the buckle device 9
The inflator 11 is fixed to a lower portion of the buckle housing 14 constituting the main body, and a buckle 15 is fixed to an upper portion thereof. The lower end of the anchor member 17 whose upper end is fixed to the buckle housing 14 with the bolt 16 is
It is supported by the seat base 10 via the fulcrum pin 18 so as to be able to swing back and forth. The connection port 19 opened on the upper wall of the buckle housing 14 and the inflator 11 communicate with each other through a gas passage 20 formed inside the buckle housing 14.

The bag 12 and the webbing 13 of the shoulder belt 6 fitted on the upper outer peripheral surface of the tongue housing 21 of the tongue device 8 and the lap belt 7 superposed on the outside thereof are tightened and fixed by the annular holder 22. Is done. A tongue 23 having an upper half embedded in the tongue housing 21 is fixed to the tongue housing 21 with bolts 24 penetrating the holder 22, the lap belt 7, the webbing 13 and the bag 12. A connection pipe 25 that can be inserted into the connection port 19 of the buckle housing 14 protrudes from the lower surface of the tongue housing 21. A gas passage 26 that connects the connection port 19 to the inside of the bag 12 is formed inside the tongue housing 21 and the connection pipe 25. A release button 27 (see FIG. 3) for separating the tongue 23 connected to the buckle 15 is provided on the buckle housing 14.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention having the above configuration will be described.

As shown in FIG. 4, when the tongue 23 of the tongue device 8 is connected to the buckle 15 of the buckle device 9 for mounting the air belt device, the connection pipe 25 of the tongue device 8 is inserted into the connection port 19 of the buckle device 9. Is done.

When the acceleration sensor detects an acceleration equal to or higher than a predetermined value due to a vehicle collision, the inflator 11 ignites to generate high-pressure gas, and the generated gas is supplied to the gas passage 20 of the buckle housing 14 and the gas passage of the tongue housing 21. It is supplied into the bag 12 of the shoulder belt 6 via 26 and the bag 12 is inflated. As shown in FIG. 6, when the bag 12 is inflated, the webbing 13 is inflated by the pressure, the elastic body 32 is further expanded, and the pad 28 is inflated, so that the entire shoulder belt 6 is inflated.
When the shoulder belt 6 expands in this way, the contact area with the occupant's chest increases compared to the shoulder belt 6 before expansion, so that the occupant can be restrained more softly.

Although the shoulder belt 6 comes into contact with the chest from the neck of the occupant to the flank, the surface is covered with a flexible pad 28 so that the feel is improved and the occupant may feel uncomfortable due to wearing of the air belt device. It is possible to contribute to the improvement of the mounting rate by reducing it. Further, even if the shoulder belt 6 expanded at the time of the collision of the vehicle strongly adheres to the occupant's body, the presence of the pad 28 can softly restrain the occupant. At this time, the raised cloth 29 of the pad 28 is properly contacted with the occupant's nape not covered by the clothes,
The position of the elastic body 32 of the pad 28 is set in advance.
That is, upon inflation of the shoulder belt 6, the elastic body 32 which is exposed to the cut 28 _1, 28 between the _first extends pads 28 are adapted opposite the occupant's body (Fig. 2
reference).

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, various design changes can be made in the present invention without departing from the gist thereof.

For example, in the embodiment, the elastic body 32 is provided on the pad 28 so that the pad 28 can be inflated following the inflation of the bag 12. The body 32 can be omitted.

[0023]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, since the surface of the webbing of the air belt device is covered with the protective material, the touch of the webbing in contact with the occupant is improved, and the air belt device is mounted. This makes it possible to reduce the discomfort of the occupant when the occupant does.

According to the invention described in claim 2,
Even if the protective material is made of an inextensible material, the belt-shaped elastic body extending in the longitudinal direction of the protective material is stretched,
The protection member can be expanded following the expansion of the bag and the webbing.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a front seat portion of a vehicle.

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

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an air belt device.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 4-4 in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 5-5 of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of an expanded shoulder belt.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 sheet 11 inflator 12 bag 13 webbing 28 pad (protective material) 32 elastic body

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A bag (12) is housed inside a webbing (13) for restraining an occupant to a seat (1), and the bag (12) is inflated with gas generated by an inflator (11) at the time of a vehicle collision. The air belt device according to claim 1, wherein the surface of the webbing (13) is covered with a protective material (28). 2. The protection member (28) includes a band-shaped elastic body (32) extending in the longitudinal direction thereof. When the webbing (13) is inflated together with the bag (12), the elastic body (3) is provided.
2) Webbing (13) of protective material (28) by extension of
2. The air belt device according to claim 1, wherein the air belt device follows the expansion of the air belt.