Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Jay Zocher

Phouvadol P Khouphongsy

Sarah E Smith

Ashwini Balasubramanian

An energy absorption (EA) pad mountable on a vehicle door interior trim panel provides controlled collapse under side impact collision forces to minimize contact between the door and a vehicle passenger. The EA pad is in the form of a hollow body having an endwall, a sidewall, and an open end. A flange extends laterally from the open end. One or more slots and one or more ribs can be formed in the sidewall or the endwall of varying height, numbers, spacing, thickness, and shapes to provide the controlled collapse of the EA pad. A restraining rib structure is formed on the door trim panel adjacent to a least one side of the EA pad. In another aspect, a door trim panel includes the EA pad.

Vehicle door energy absorption pad

Headliners for vehicles and vehicles incorporating the same are disclosed. In one embodiment, a vehicle includes an enclosed passenger compartment at least partially bounded by a roof structure. A headliner may be attached to an inboard side of the roof structure. The headliner may include an acoustical attenuator portion attached to an inboard side of the roof structure and an acoustical reflector portion attached to an inboard side of the acoustical attenuator portion. The acoustical attenuator portion absorbs acoustic energy incident on an outboard surface of the roof structure and the acoustical reflector portion reflects acoustic energy incident on an inboard side of the acoustical reflector portion. The enclosed passenger compartment has a Speech Transmission Index greater than 0.56 for acoustic energy incident on the inboard side of the acoustical reflector portion.

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Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

Jay Zocher