JPS63255170A - Steering wheel core member - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve a flatter characteristic by forming the boss fitting of a steering wheel core member made of a continuous fiber of a fiber reinforcing resin with inside and outside members on which barrel parts having flat parts which are slidingly brought into contact with each other are provided respectively, and providing an elastic body between both of said members. CONSTITUTION:A steering wheel core member is formed by winding a bundle of continuous fiber which is impregnated with resin around a ring part forming jig (figure omitted) and a boss fitting 10 positioned on the axis of the jig in order, and has a circular ring part, a boss part 3, and spoke parts which extend in the radial direction from the ring part toward the boss part 3. In this case, the boss fitting 10 is formed with an inside member 11 which is connected to a shaft and a cylindrical outside member 12. And, pairs of flat parts 11c, 12c which are slidingly brought into contact with each other are formed on the outer periphery of the barrel part 11b of the inside member 11 and the inner periphery of the barrel part 12b of the outside member 12 respectively, while providing an elastic body 14 having a torsional rigidity of 30-300N.m/rad in between both members 11, 12.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a steering wheel core material, and more particularly to a steering wheel core material formed from continuous fibers of fiber reinforced resin (FRP).

(Prior art) In order to reduce the weight and strengthen the steering wheel installed in vehicles, conventional steering wheels are made by using a core material made by winding F)LP in the form of long fiber bundles and forming a layered layer with a cushioning material. It has been put into practical use after being wrapped with leather and treated with a surface material such as leather. The long fiber bundle-shaped FRP is made by impregnating a continuous bundle of glass fibers, carbon fibers, etc. with epoxy resin, polyester resin, etc., and after wrapping it around a wire and laminating it, it is heated and cured. As shown in FIG. 6, the core material 1 of the steering wheel has a circular ring portion 2 and is located at the axis of the ring portion 2. It consists of a boss portion 3 and spoke portions 4 extending from the ring portion 2 toward the boss portion 3. The present inventors have disclosed an example of a manufacturing apparatus for the steering wheel core material 1 in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 165838/1983, which will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8.

This manufacturing device 5 is roughly composed of a lower mold 7 fixed to a main shaft 6, an upper mold 8 that is fitted and stacked on the lower mold 7, and a boss metal fitting 9 attached to the tip of the main shaft 6. The lower mold 7 and the upper mold 8 each have a groove 7a having a semicircular cross section.

8a is formed, and these grooves 7a and 8a are combined to form a ring winding groove (ring part forming jig) for forming the ring part 2 of the core material 1.

Then, the main shaft 6 is rotated to form a long fiber bundle F ) L P
The ring portion 2 is formed by winding the FRP into the ring winding groove, and the FRP is bent at the notch groove 8b formed on the side surface of the upper mold 8 and wound around the boss fitting 9 to form the boss portion. 3 and spoke portions 4 are formed. In this way, the steering wheel core material 1 is manufactured by heating and hardening the structure formed by sequentially winding up the structure.

Steering wheel core material 1 manufactured from this FRP
is lightweight and has excellent strength, and in particular, a steering wheel manufactured using this core material 1 can significantly improve the shake (vertical vibration) characteristics when the vehicle is running.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) However, since the steering wheel manufactured using the steering wheel core material 1 is very lightweight, the moment of inertia is small and the black characteristics (vibration characteristics in the circumferential direction of the steering wheel) are reduced. There was a problem with letting it work.

Therefore, in some cases, the ring portion 2 is made heavier in order to improve the black characteristics. This is a weight (
There are two types: one with a weight attached to it, and one with a larger amount of FRP winding in the ring part, but the problem with the weight attachment is that it takes a lot of time to install and reduces productivity. However, in the case where the amount of FRP wound up is increased, since the specific gravity of FRP is small, only the ring portion 2 becomes extremely thick, resulting in poor balance of strength and deterioration of the handle characteristics.

Furthermore, these items also lead to an increase in the weight of the entire steering wheel, resulting in a problem of deterioration of the shake characteristics.

The present inventors took the above-mentioned problems into consideration and made the following
No. 69958 and Japanese Patent Application No. 61-265074 disclose a steering wheel core material that improves flutter characteristics without making the ring part heavy, but these have problems such as low bonding strength between the FRP and the boss metal fitting. There was a problem.

The present invention is intended to solve the above problems,
The purpose is to provide a core material for manufacturing a steering wheel that has improved black characteristics and has a strong bond between FRP and boss metal fittings.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The steering wheel core material of the present invention includes a continuous fiber bundle impregnated with resin between a ring part forming jig and a boss metal fitting located at the axis of the ring part forming jig. Sequentially wind the ring part and boss part.

In the steering wheel core material formed with a spoke part, the boss metal fitting is connected to an inner member connecting the shaft and a cylindrical outer member around which the continuous fiber bundle is wound,
A plane portion is formed on the outer periphery of the body of the inner member and the inner periphery of the body of the outer member, and further an elastic body having a torsional rigidity of 30 to so Nm/rad is enclosed in the gap between the inner member and the outer member. It is characterized by what it did.

The boss metal fittings used in the present invention are as described above.
It consists of an outer member and is used by being fitted together, and the body portions of these inner and outer members each have a flat portion formed therein. The shape of this flat part is not particularly limited as long as it is formed so that a part of the trunk of the inner member rotating within the outer member comes into contact with the flat part of the outer member.

Furthermore, the elastic body sealed in the gap between the inner and outer members is one that absorbs vibrations and has a torsional rigidity of 30 to 300 N.
-m/rad is sufficient.

This is because the smaller the torsional rigidity, the better the flutter characteristics, but if it is less than 3ON-m/rad, the transmission of force to the shaft becomes slow, causing a problem;
This is because if it exceeds d, good flutter characteristics cannot be obtained. The elastic body used in the present invention is, for example, rubber, resin, air, oil, or the like.

(Function) In a steering wheel manufactured using the steering wheel core material having the above configuration, when the external force applied to the steering wheel is of low torque, vibrations are absorbed by the elastic body and flutter characteristics are improved.

In addition, when the torque applied to the steering wheel increases, the elastic body deforms and a part of the outer periphery of the inner member comes into contact with the flat surface formed on the outer member, so that the torque of the steering wheel is efficiently applied directly to the shaft. communicated.

(Example) Next, an example of the present invention will be described based on the drawings, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

1 to 5 relate to this embodiment.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the boss metal fitting 10 used in the steering wheel core material of this embodiment is composed of an inner member 11 and a cylindrical outer member 12.

The inner member 11 has a flange Ifa formed at its lower end, and a flange Ifa is formed at the center of the inner member 11 to engage a shaft (not shown). 7 holes 1s are Xm. Furthermore, a pair of plane parts 11C are formed in parallel on the outer periphery of the body part 11b.

On the other hand, the cylindrical outer member 12 has a flange 12a at the upper end.
The inner periphery of the body portion 12b has a pair of flat portions 12C in parallel with which the inner member 11 can slide, and is opposed to the flat portion jjc. Then, the body portion 11b of the inner member 11 rotates, and the flat portion 12C of the outer member 12
The dimensions are set so that it can still be connected to.

The boss fitting 10 is manufactured by enclosing an elastic body 14 such as rubber, synthetic resin, air, oil, etc. into the gap created by assembling the inner member 11 and the outer member 12 thus configured. At this time, the torsional rigidity of the elastic body is 75 (Example 1
), 100 (Example 2), and 250 (Example 3) Nm/rad were used to manufacture three types of boss metal fittings.

As shown in FIG. 1, the core material 1 of the steering wheel is formed by winding a continuous fiber (P15) around these boss fittings 10 using the manufacturing apparatus 5 or the like.

The flutter level of a steering wheel manufactured using the steering wheel core material 1 thus manufactured was measured.

This black level measures the amount of tire imbalance in 4Q.
tr, the relationship between the vehicle speed and the acceleration in the circumferential direction of the steering wheel is measured, and the peak acceleration at this time is taken as the flutter level of the steering wheel, and the smaller this value, the better the flutter characteristics. is expensive.

The results are shown in the table below, but here, for comparison, a steering wheel similar to the above (Comparative Example 1
) and steering wheel with steel core (
Comparative Example 2) was also tested in the same manner.

Table: Measurement results of flutter level According to this table, it can be seen that the steering wheel using the boss metal fitting of Example 1 has a flutter level comparable to that of the conventional steel core, and is particularly effective. Further, Examples 2 and 3 also have good flutter characteristics, although they are not as good as Example 1.

The improvement in flutter characteristics according to the present invention can be explained as follows.

First, when the external torque applied to the steering wheel is low, as shown in FIG. 3, the elastic body 14 hardly deforms and absorbs the circumferential vibration generated in the steering wheel, thereby improving the black characteristics.

Next, when the torque applied to the steering wheel becomes large, the elastic body 14 deforms, as shown in FIG.
1C and the boundary of the curved surface portion come into contact with each other, and the torque input to the steering wheel is efficiently transmitted to the shaft (not shown).

FIG. 5 shows the relationship between the input torsional torque of the steering wheel and the torsional angle. When torsional torque is input to the steering wheel and before the inner member 11 contacts the outer member, the torque is transmitted to the shaft via the elastic body 14. In Examples 1 to 3), the torsion angle increases sharply with respect to the rate of increase in torque. and,
This characteristic can be controlled by changing the size of the gap between the inner member 11 and the outer member 12 or the density and pressure of the elastic body.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, the steering wheel core material of the present invention has a flat part formed in the inner member connected to the shaft and the outer member around which the F ring P is wound, and furthermore, the inner member
Since an elastic body having appropriate torsional rigidity is enclosed in the gap between the first member and the outer member, the flutter characteristics can be improved without increasing the weight of the steering wheel ring.

Further, since the boss metal fittings manufactured in advance are used, the number of manufacturing steps for the steering wheel core material is not increased, and productivity is not reduced.

Furthermore, since the F-ring P and the boss metal fitting are directly joined, high joining strength is obtained and reliability is improved.

[BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS] Fig. 1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a boss metal fitting used in a steering wheel core material according to an embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the boss metal fitting shown in Fig. 1. 3 and 4 are cross-sectional views showing how the steering wheel core material of the example is used, and FIG. 5 is the torsional torque and torsion angle when the steering wheel manufactured using the steering wheel core material of the example is used. FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing an example of a steering wheel core material, FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view showing an example of a steering wheel core manufacturing apparatus, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a front view of the illustrated device in operation; In the figure, 1 Steering wheel core material 10...Boss fitting 11...Inner member 12...Outer members 11b, 12b...Body portions 11c, 12c...Plane portion 14...Elastic body patent application People Toyota Motor Corporation Fang 3 figure 4 figure 5 figure torsion (rod) 6 figure

Claims (1)

[Claims] A steering wheel in which a ring part, a boss part, and a spoke part are formed by sequentially winding a continuous fiber bundle impregnated with resin around a ring part forming jig and a boss metal fitting located at the axis of the ring part forming jig. In the wheel core material, the boss metal fitting includes an inner member that connects the shaft and a cylindrical outer member that winds the continuous fiber bundle, and has a flat surface on the outer circumference of the body of the inner member and the inner circumference of the body of the outer member. The gap between the inner member and the outer member has a torsional rigidity of 30 to 3.
A steering wheel core material characterized by enclosing an elastic body of 00 N·m/rad.