Volkswagen Ag

Holger M Thum

Ruprecht Sinnhuber

Wolfgang Lange

Ulrich Knothe

Frank V&ouml;ge

A motor vehicle safety arrangement has a pedal mechanism with at least one bearing block and at least one pedal articulated thereon. The bearing block is held by a beam member which extends approximately over the width of the vehicle and is spaced from a bulkhead delimiting the passenger compartment. In order to prevent injury to feet on frontal impact, the beam member is resistant to bending and is uncoupled from the bulkhead. The distance between the member and bulkhead is dimensioned such that, in the event of intrusion of the bulkhead as a result of a collision, the position of the beam member does not vary substantially.

Motor vehicle safety arrangement

A transverse support arrangement, consisting of two support sections extending parallel to one another, both of which have closed cross-sections and a common wall, is made in one piece as an extruded member and, in addition, is designed so that, upon impact, a conversion of energy is effected by reverse deformation of a support section.

Impact-absorbing transverse support arrangement

A deformation member having an eversion portion includes a central deformation portion made of unreinforced thermoplastic synthetic material and end portions made of fiber-reinforced synthetic material providing connections to neighboring parts. This permits simple manufacture by injection molding.

Deformation member having an eversion portion

A mat-like structure contains a substantially planar support array, which may be in the form of a lattice or an array of separate members, and a plurality of elastically yielding integral elements consisting of at least two half-arches having their free ends connected to different points of the support array. The structure may be used, for example, for a vehicle seat, a snow chain or a load restraint device.

Limited compressibility support structure

A torsion-resistant vehicle underbody which may be used in convertibles contains a four-sided supporting arrangement and a cross-shaped supporting arrangement consisting of two diagonal supports which are rigidly connected together at their crossing points and are connected at their ends with the four-sided supporting arrangement.

Torsion-resistant vehicle underbody

A deformation structure includes a hollow member and a tapered deformation member having a smaller diameter than the hollow member and arranged to be inverted into the hollow member in response to an applied force. The hollow member has a pleat-denting response to higher applied forces so that the pleat engages the surface of the inverted deformation member within the hollow member.

Deformation structure, in particular for a motor vehicle

A fold-back deformation arrangement includes a deformation tube of plastically deformable material and a support arrangement with a fold-back surface engaging one end of the tube. The arrangement is designed so that relative angular motions between the fold-back surface and the deformation tube are possible without tending to buckle the tube.

Fold-back deformation arrangement

A structural part, such as a kinetic energy-absorbing beam for vehicle construction, formed of a hollow metal member produced from profiled members connected by application of heat and a prefabricated reinforcing core of light-weight material is produced by first providing the core with a shell of heat-foamable material, then completing the hollow member by welding, and finally subjecting the assembly to an immersion-coating operation with heat. The hollow member has local inward projections for positioning of the core, leaving open spaces which provide thermal insulation during the welding process and which are permeated by hot coating material during the immersion-coating, so that the shell is foamed and a positive, force-transmitting connection is provided between the core and the hollow member.

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Braunschweig, Germany

Holger M Thum