Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Dirk Van Oirschot

Olaf Van Leeuwen

Joerg Reim

Georg Giazitzis

A vehicle having a sliding door arranged behind a body pillar, a frame around the door opening closeable by the sliding door, a rail system provided in the region of the sliding door connected fixedly to the vehicle and having upper and lower guide rails, sliding carriages provided on the sliding door connected to the sliding door via a respective supporting arm and guided displaceably on the guide rails, and side impact protection in the region of the sliding door. At least one of the sliding carriages or supporting arms is provided with a stop. In the event of a side impact, in which the outer vehicle wall is deformed in the direction of the vehicle interior, an abutment connected to the vehicle wall comes to bear against the stop of the sliding carriage or of the supporting arm, and the position of the sliding door is thereby blocked.

Vehicle with a sliding door system

A door hooking arrangement for a motor vehicle for protecting against an impact on a vehicle door () including a catch hook () and a receiver () for the catch hook (), the catch hook () and receiver () being correspondingly arranged on the vehicle door () and a door frame () in the vehicle. The catch hook () includes at least one barb (). Thus, with plastic deformation of the vehicle door, the catch hook () is hooked very firmly in the receiver ().

Door hooking arrangement for a motor vehicle

In order to optimize the transmitting of force and in order to keep the longitudinal member undamaged in the event of a low impact speed, for example in the event of an accident involving a pedestrian, and in order to permit easy exchangeability of the longitudinal member, it is proposed that, in a normal position, the lower longitudinal member is held spaced apart in the direction of travel from an associated transverse link and can be brought by the frontal impact into a crash position in which the longitudinal member acts on the transverse link in a manner transmitting force.

Safety structure for vehicles

A chassis auxiliary-frame arrangement on a preferably self-supporting vehicle body is designed for improving the safety in a crash in such a manner that, in a frontal impact of the vehicle, the deformation zones of the vehicle body can be adequately and uniformly deformed without interference from the chassis auxiliary frame in order thereby to achieve a greater effective crash length of the deformation zones of the body. For this purpose, the chassis auxiliary-frame has devices for fastening it to the vehicle body, which devices, during a frontal impact of the vehicle, are completely detached above a certain degree of deformation of the deformation zones of the body, the chassis auxiliary-frame is therefore completely decoupled from the body and is pushed under the passenger cellby means of a ramp.

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Luettelforst-Schwalmtal, Germany

Dirk Van Oirschot