Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Hiroki Morimoto

Shinichi Hirahara

A door beam housed in a vehicle door has a rear end which is positioned in overlapping relationship to a central pillar in the lateral direction of a vehicle body. A bracket which is of a channel-shaped horizontal cross section is fixed to the rear of the door beam so as to be positioned closely to the central pillar when the door is closed. The bracket is effective in increasing the lateral rigidity of the vehicle body to efficiently absorb and distribute shocks applied during a lateral collision from an initial phase thereof.

Vehicle body side structure

In an automotive door assembly including an outer panel and an inner panel, the inner panel is reinforced by a plate member attached to the outer surface of the inner panel so as to define a closed vertical cross section by a pair of mutually opposing concave surfaces thereof. The inner reinforcement member is relatively large in thickness but is allowed to relatively readily extend vertically by being relatively sharply bent at upper and lower portions thereof. Thus, according to the present invention, the automotive door demonstrates a relatively high rigidity against external side impacts, and can spread the impact energy over a large area, thereby involving a relatively small deformation. On the other hand, the door can readily deform itself against internal side impacts, and a relative large amount of impact energy can be absorbed again without involving a large lateral deformation because the collapsing and the vertical extension of the closed cross section formed by the inner panel and the associated inner reinforcement member allows a large amount of energy to be absorbed.

Growing community of inventors

Saitama-ken, Japan

Hiroki Morimoto