Mazda Motor Corporation

Nifco Inc.

Ashimori Industry Co., Ltd.

Mazda Motor Corporat Ion

Nishikawa Kasei Co., Ltd.

Hideharu Kaeriyama

Satoru Nakamura

Kenichi Yukumatsu

Takehiko Nemoto

Yuta Minami

Masafumi Sakakida

Hideharu Saiki

Yoshio Fujii

Kazuya Fukutani

Kohei Kirita

Chikara Sato

Kansei Yamaguchi

Xiaoguang Liu

Nozomi Tanaka

Shiori Tontani

Yosuke Onda

Hidenori Higo

Toru Maeda

Hironobu Kondou

Ayumi Hamamoto

A vehicle ensures deployment stability of a compact knee airbag while improving design flexibility, by disposing the knee airbag in a lower portion of a storage box. The vehicle includes a knee airbag arranged in front of a passenger seat in a lower portion of a glove box. The glove box has a housing which is fixed to an instrument panel by a plurality of support portions and which demarcates a storage space. An instrument panel member fixed to the vehicle body is disposed above a ceiling wall of the housing. The ceiling wall has a displacement regulation wall portion which bulges upward compared to another portion of the ceiling wall and is spaced apart from the instrument panel member such that the displacement regulation wall portion abuts the instrument panel member when the knee airbag is deployed.

Vehicle

A knee-airbag-device attachment structure comprises knee-airbag devices and vehicle-body side brackets which connect the knee-airbag devices and hinge pillars of a vehicle body, respectively. This knee-airbag-device attachment structure further comprises an instrument-panel-member supporting-post side bracket which connects the knee-airbag device to an instrument-panel-member supporting post which is provided to extend between an instrument panel member and a tunnel portion of a floor panel.

Knee-airbag-device attachment structure of vehicle

A steering wheel structure includes: a guide member () that is formed into a tubular shape, and attached to a mounting hole () formed in a mounting plate () of an airbag module (); a hook member () that is formed in a steering wheel (), and is inserted into the guide member (); a damper rubber () that is interposed between an edge portion of the mounting hole () in the mounting plate (), and the guide member (); and a lock spring () that is attached to the guide member (). The lock spring () is engaged with the hook member () inserted into the guide member () so as to prevent the hook member () from coming-off from the guide member ().

Steering wheel structure

In a knee-airbag-device attachment structure of a knee-airbag device, an instrument-panel-member side bracket which connects the knee-airbag device and an instrument panel member to support the knee-airbag device comprises a branch bracket which is connected to an instrument panel core. The knee-airbag-device attachment structure further comprises a vehicle-body side bracket which connects the knee-airbag device and a hinge pillar of a vehicle body.

A cell of a curtain airbag is configured such that its upper portion is closed in an inflated state of the curtain airbag, whereas its lower portion is open and connected to a gas flowing passage from an inflator. Accordingly, a passenger protection device of a vehicle which can properly prevent an interior material from being broken and scattered can be provided.

Passenger protection of vehicle

A connection member which connects an outside portion of a cross member and an inside wall face portion of a side sill includes a cross-member-side connection portion connected to the cross member and a side-sill-side connection portion connected to the side sill, the side-sill-side connection portion is configured to have a lower rigidity than the cross-member-side connection portion, and an outside end portion of the cross member is located at a specified position which is located on the outside of the cross-member-side connection portion and on the inside away from the inside wall face portion of the side sill. Thereby, the impact load in the vehicle side collision can be effectively supported by the cross member with a simple structure.

Vehicle-body lower structure of vehicle

A door lock mechanism includes a lock claw, a spring attached to the lock claw for urging the same in a direction toward a lock state, a lock release operation piece linked to the lock claw for moving the lock claw in a direction toward a lock release state against a force of the spring when a lock release operation is performed, and a damping device for applying a damping force to the lock claw when the lock release operation is canceled. The lock release operation piece returns the lock claw to the lock state with the force when the lock release operation is canceled. The lock release operation piece is arranged to be separated from the lock claw when the lock claw returns from the lock release state to the lock state with an external force applied to the lock claw.

Door lock mechanism and door lock unit

Growing community of inventors

Hiroshima, Japan

Hideharu Kaeriyama