Mazda Motor Corporation

Katsumi Ejima

Yoshikazu Nishimura

Keizo Kawasaki

Noboru Yoshii

Shuichi Nakagami

Yuichi Sugimura

Katsuyoshi Ishigame

Masaki Motoki

Makoto Yamauchi

Norihiko Kanemitsu

Kohei Kirita

Yukari Fujii

Manabu Tamura

Koh Nakao

Akihiro Yukimori

Toshimitsu Kadoya

Yukari Kato

A reinforcing member is provided at a lower-outside corner of a side-sill reinforcement so as to extend in the vehicle longitudinal direction including a connection portion of the side sill to a center pillar for straining deformation of the corner. A deformation promoting portion which is provided at an upper portion of the side-sill reinforcement at a specified position which corresponds to the connection portion for prompting deformation of the upper portion of the side-sill reinforcement. Accordingly, a lower vehicle-body structure of a vehicle which can properly restrain the side sill and the center pillar from coming toward the vehicle inside at the vehicle side crash can be provided.

Lower vehicle-body structure of vehicle

The invention provides a body structure for vehicles which is capable of enhancing the passenger-protecting performance without much increasing the vehicle weight by enhancing the stiffness around the vehicle interior with high efficiency. A body roof is equipped with a closed-in-cross-section roof reinforcement extending widthwise of the vehicle body along a roof panel, right-and-left end portions of the roof reinforcement being coupled to upper end portions of a right-and-left pair of closed-in-cross-section center pillars extending in upper-and-lower direction in side portions of the vehicle body, respectively. Lower end portions of the center pillars are coupled to a pair of closed-in-cross-section side sills which extend longitudinally of the vehicle body to support right-and-left side edge portions of a floor panel, respectively, so that the roof reinforcement, the right-and-left center pillars and the right-and-left side sills form a continuous closed cross section with which an upper portion and right-and-left side portions of the vehicle interior, as viewed from the front of the vehicle, are covered.

Body structure for vehicles employing floor, roof, pillar and side sill

An upper body section of a vehicle body of the type having a generally U-shaped roof side gutter, interposed between a roof and a body side frame and stretching the full length of the roof, has a structure comprising a gutter rail formed by an inside half of the gutter rail integrally formed with a roof panel and an outside half of the gutter rail integrally formed with a side frame panel. A roof reinforcement beam is laid so as to extend between center pillars and is secured to the roof panel. A corner gusset extends across the gutter rail, overlaps both the center pillar and the roof reinforcement beam, and is secured to both the center pillar and the roof reinforcement beam.

Structure for upper body section of vehicle body

An upper body structure for a car body includes a hollow front pillar, which includes inner and outer front pillar panels shaped so as to form a column space in the front pillar. The front pillar is connected to an upper portion of a dash panel by a gusset configuration.

Upper body structure of a vehicle

Growing community of inventors

Hiroshima, Japan

Katsumi Ejima