Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.

Other

Panasonic Corporation

Kurabe Industrial Co., Ltd.

Toyada Gosei Co., Ltd.

Atsushi Nagata

Akio Hosoi

Katsunobu Sakane

Tooru Koyama

Yoshio Mizuno

Tadashi Yamamoto

Mikine Hayashi

Yuji Sato

Masahiro Takimoto

Toru Koyama

Kazumasa Suzuki

Yoshiyuki Fujita

Norio Umemura

Naoki Hotta

Kensaku Honda

Naohiko Ishiguro

Koji Shibayama

Norinari Nagata

Kazuhiro Nakayama

Tetsuya Takamori

Takanori Mizuno

Hitoshi Yamamoto

Kenji Mori

Masakazu Hashimoto

Ichizou Shiga

Masayasu Sahara

Minoru Hashimoto

Toshinori Tanase

Kazuaki Bito

Michio Inoue

Tetsushi Hiramitsu

Tsutomu Ishii

Hitoshi Iida

Shun Takeuchi

Osamu Hirose

Makoto Kanai

Bunpei Morita

Hiroshi Yasuda

Yoshiteru Banno

Mitsuhiro Kikuta

Hitoshi Kondo

Tatsuya Hayakawa

Sadao Uchida

Hirokazu Matsuura

Shinichi Takeda

Norio Mizuno

Takahiro Hashiba

Kenji Hayakawa

Hiroki Tanaka

Kazutoshi Hayashi

Kazuo Ogino

Kouichi Kaga

Kazuhiro Terada

Masafumi Kurokawa

Hiroyuki Yamada

Masatsugu Saito

Katsumi Sakakida

Takashi Naito

Naoki Tsukamoto

Yuki Naito

Suzuaki Hongou

Koji Shiraki

Tsuneki Wakamatsu

Renge Asakawa

Eiichi Yamada

Yasushi Hibino

Shinsuke Shimiya

Ryoji Kagohashi

Hitoshi Nozu

Takashi Usugi

Haruhiko Segawa

A steering wheel includes a functional device and a control device, which is electrically connected to the functional device. The functional device includes a functional case, which constitutes a housing of the functional device. The control device includes a control case, which constitutes a housing of the control device. A first connector is partially exposed to an outside of the functional case. A second connector is partially exposed to an outside of the control case. The first connector is coupled to the second connector, so that the functional device is electrically connected to the control device without a harness between the functional case and the control case.

Steering wheel

A steering wheel includes an indicator. The indicator includes a light source that emits light and a light guide. The light guide includes an outer surface and an end opposing the light source. The light emitted from the light source enters the end of the light guide, and some of the light is emitted from the outer surface.

A heater unit includes a pair of substrates formed from a polymeric foam and a cord-shaped heater sandwiched between the pair of substrates. The thickness of a region of each of the substrates at which the cord-shaped heater is disposed is thinned relative to other regions of the substrates in such a manner as to be shaped to the cord-shaped heater and thus the heater unit forms a flat shape. In the heater unit, the substrates are bonded together by an adhesive layer that is composed only from a pressure-sensitive adhesive.

Heater unit and steering wheel

An airbag apparatus includes an airbag. The airbag includes a gas releasing valve having first and second valve body portions each have a flexible portion. The flexible portions are flexible toward a released gas downstream side of inflation gas. An auxiliary joint portion joins the first and second valve body portions to each other and extending, from a position in the vicinity of and on a released gas upstream side of the flexible portion, further toward the released gas upstream side. A flex-resistant portion that extends in the gas releasing direction and is less flexible than the flexible portion is arranged on the auxiliary joint portion of the gas releasing valve or in the vicinity of the auxiliary joint portion.

Airbag apparatus

A side impact protection airbag system includes an inflator, a retainer and an airbag. An interior space of the airbag is divided into a pelvis portion protecting chamber and a chest portion protecting chamber by a dividing part. A gas ejecting part of the inflator and an opening in the retainer are provided between a fixing end portion of the airbag and an end portion (a connecting portion) of the dividing part which lies a side facing the fixing end portion. A circumferential portion on a wall part which is separate from the opening is made to constitute an interruption wall which interrupts the passage of an inflation gas to the dividing part side, and the interruption wall is provided between the gas ejecting part and the connecting portion.

Side impact protection airbag system

A dust collector includes turbofans with inducers fixed to the shafts of electric motors. The electric motors are fixed to the rectangular body with mounting legs. The dust collector further includes a single dust collecting filter under the turbofans. The turbofans have a diameter ranging from 40% to 50% of the length of the short side of the body.

Dust collector

A check valveis formed by a pair of the valve body portions. Ends of the valve body portionsthat are close to an upper inflation portion EU are joined to a communication passage wallby an outflow-side joint portion. Each valve body portionincludes a flexible portionthat is located in the vicinity of the outflow-side joint portionand between the outflow-side joint portionand a lower inflation portion EL. The front edges of the valve body portionsare joined to the communication passage wallby a first edge joint portion. The first edge joint portionalso functions as a wall joint portionthat joins the communication passage wallsto each other. The rear ends of the valve body portionsare joined to each other by a second edge joint portion, which extends along the flowing direction of inflation gas. An auxiliary joint portionis located between the first edge joint portionand the second edge joint portion, and in the vicinity of the second edge joint portion. The auxiliary joint portionjoins the valve body portionsto each other. The auxiliary joint portionalso functions as a rigid portion, which is harder to flex than the flexible portion. The rigid portionextends along the flowing direction of the inflation gas.

In a knee protecting airbag device of the present invention, an airbag is folded and housed on the front side of the knees of a seated passenger. The airbag is protruded rearward of a vehicle from a protruding opening and expanded and inflated upward, when an inflating gas flows in. And, the airbag is arranged on the front side of the knees of the passenger between a member on the body side and the knees of the passenger thereby to protect the knees of the passenger. The protruding opening has a transverse width size set within a range of &#x215b; to &#x2154; of the transverse width size of the airbag having completed its expansion and inflation.

Knee protecting airbag device

In a vehicle to which a side airbag apparatus is applied, a rear frame portion of a seat frame is arranged near a rear end of an intermediate portion in a seat back, and an intermediate pad portion of a seat pad is arranged near a front end of the intermediate portion. An airbag is provided with a main airbag and an auxiliary airbag. The main airbag is inflated between a body side portion of the vehicle and an occupant by shooting out forward from an outer side portion of the seat back by a gas jetted out of an inflator. The auxiliary airbag presses a position near the outer side portion of the intermediate pad portion forward by being inflated between the rear frame portion and the intermediate pad portion by the gas jetted out of the inflator.

Side airbag apparatus

The airbag apparatus includes an airbag having a tether including an occupant side tether belt and a vehicle body side tether belt. An intermediate portion of the vehicle body side tether belt is held at the side of a housing of the airbag by a retaining mechanism. At full inflation of the airbag, the clearance between the side of the housing and the occupant side tether belt is reduced when the vehicle body side belt is retained by the retaining mechanism whereas the clearance is enlarged when the vehicle body side tether belt is released from the retaining mechanism. The occupant side tether belt and the vehicle body side tether belt are linked with each other so that a central area of a protection plane of an occupant side wall of the airbag in the former case is generally parallel to the central area in the latter.

In an airbag device of the invention, by making use of a retainer which is made up of a retaining part which is provided on an outside of an inflator and bolt parts, an airbag and the inflator are fixed to a fixing wall portion of a case by fastening nuts onto the bolt parts which are caused to protrude from the fixing wall portion of the case in such a state the retaining part is housed within the airbag. A support projection is formed on the fixing wall portion in such a manner as to protrude therefrom toward the inflator side. When the nuts are fastened, the retainer moves the retaining part toward the fixing wall portion side, so that the inflator is held between and retained by abutment portions formed on the retaining part and the support projection.

Airbag device

The airbag apparatus includes an airbag having an exhaust hole for discharging part of inflation gas, an open/close controller for controlling opening and closing operations of the exhaust hole, and a flap element releasably joined to the open/close controller and being joined to a periphery of the exhaust hole in an outer side of the airbag which periphery is in a side facing away from the open/close controller, for opening and closing the exhaust hole. The apparatus further includes an open/close means arranged in the periphery of the exhaust hole. Upon airbag inflation, if the flap element is retained by the open/close controller, the open/close means is held down at its outer side by the flap element and keeps the exhaust hole closed. If the flap element is released from the open/close controller, the open/close means opens by the pressure of inflation gas to expand an opening area of the exhaust hole.

The knee-protecting airbag device includes an airbag that protrudes rearward from a housing and deploys upward when fed with inflation gas. The airbag includes an upstream part located toward lower end of the completely inflated airbag and located upstream of inflation gas, and a downstream part located toward upper end of the completely inflated airbag and located downstream of inflation gas. The downstream part is adapted to protect an area from shins to knees of an occupant when the airbag is completely inflated. In the course of airbag inflation, internal pressure of a shin-protecting area, which is part of the downstream part for protecting shins, peaks 5 to 15 ms later than a peak time of internal pressure of the upstream part.

Knee-protecting airbag device

The knee protecting airbag device is assembled such that a retainer and an attachment bracket clamp the peripheral portion of a gas inlet opening of an airbag, bag holding wall parts of a case, and a gas providing inflator. This inflator is provided with a diffuser for covering the gas discharge port of a body. The retainer and the attachment bracket are connected by inserting bolts and connecting members through the airbag and the case, by retaining retaining portions on the retaining portions of the connecting members, and by inserting the bolts into through holes and fastening them with nuts. At this connecting time, guide portions of the retainer and the diffuser are fitted on each other to form a guide passage for guiding the gas into the airbag.

Growing community of inventors

Aichi-ken, Japan

Atsushi Nagata