Jtekt Corporation

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Koyo Seiko Company, Ltd.

Jtekt Column Systems Corporation

Masayoshi Sakuda

Atsumune Nagatani

Yu Myohoji

Ryota Okano

Tomonori Sugiura

Michiaki Yamaoka

Kazuki Fujiwara

Susumu Imagaki

Yoshihito Yoshihara

Tatsuro Kubota

Shoji Ishimura

Takuya Adachi

Satoki Yoshimura

Shigeru Hoshino

Akihiko Shiina

Yuji Takahashi

Takahiro Baito

Kota Higuchi

Daiki Goto

Kenji Utsunomiya

Noritake Okawa

Hiroaki Suzuki

So Tanaka

Naofumi Kawamura

Mitsuharu Minami

Kosuke Ito

Naohiro Oosono

Yuki Fujioka

Yasuhiro Tanioka

Tetsuya Ebisu

Yoshiaki Murakami

Kazuhisa Asakawa

Takao Nakaaki

Shigeru Morita

Takashi Yamaguchi

Michi Kikuiri

Shoin Kume

Hiroaki Shinto

Syunya Kouketsu

Yusuke Nishimine

Akihiro Taniyama

A gear includes an annular sleeve and a tooth portion provided by injection molding to cover a part of the sleeve. The sleeve is a stacked body including a plurality of annular steel plates stacked in an axial direction of the sleeve.

Gear and steering device

A steering shaft is rotatably provided inside an outer column and an inner column. A key lock collar is mounted on an outer peripheral surface of the steering shaft, the outer peripheral surface facing the outer column. The key lock collar includes a key lock collar body and a cylindrical portion. Multiple concave parts and convex parts extending in the axial direction are provided on an outer peripheral part of the key lock collar body along the circumferential direction. A lock key is engaged with the concave parts from adjacent to the outer column, and thus the rotation of the steering shaft with respect to the outer column is restricted. An outer diameter of the cylindrical portion is smaller than an outer diameter of the convex parts and larger than an outer diameter of the concave parts.

Steering column device

A steering system includes an upper jacket, a lower jacket, a support, a lock mechanism, and a shock absorber. The support supports the lower jacket. The lock mechanism switches a restriction of a telescopic adjustment and a termination of the restriction. The upper jacket includes a protruding stopper configured to regulate a position of the upper jacket at one end of a telescopic stroke range. The lock mechanism includes an opening and closing portion configured to enter a path of the stopper while the restriction of the telescopic adjustment is terminated, and configured to open the path of the stopper while the telescopic adjustment is restricted.

Steering system

A steering column device includes an inner tube, a housing, and a lock mechanism configured. The lock mechanism includes a first engagement member, a second engagement member, a first urging member, a second urging member, a cam member configured to rotate about a rotation axis extending in a direction in which the first urging member and the second urging member are arranged such that the second urging member serving as a follower is moved in the direction in which the first urging member and the second urging member are arranged to change a magnitude relationship between an urging force of the first urging member and an urging force of the second urging member, and an operation lever configured to operate the cam member.

A column jacket includes a hollow outer jacket having a pair of clamped portions disposed to sandwich a slit between the clamped portions and a tubular inner jacket having, in an area where the inner jacket is fitted in the outer jacket, an elongated hole extending in an axial direction. A clamping mechanism clamps the pair of clamped portions with a pair of side plates of a fixed bracket. The elongated hole is disposed on any one of a first side and a second side, in the lateral direction, of a vertical plane passing through a central axis of the inner jacket, at a position other than on a straight line that extends in a vertical direction through the central axis.

A steering system includes a rod member, a housing, and a clamping member. The housing has a clamping slit and includes a first clamp-receiving portion and a second clamp-receiving portion that project so as to sandwich the clamping slit therebetween. The clamping member includes a fixed cam, a clamping shaft, a rotary cam, and a clamping lever. The fixed cam is fitted in the first clamp-receiving portion from an outer side of the first clamp-receiving portion. The fixed cam has a third through hole extending through the fixed cam coaxially with a first axis. The third through hole has a small diameter portion at a first portion close to the rotary cam and a large diameter portion having a diameter larger than a diameter of the small diameter portion at a second portion away from the rotary cam.

There is provided a steering system that can absorb an increased total amount of shock at a time of a secondary collision. A steering member is connected to one end of an upper jacket in a column axial direction. A lower jacket is externally fitted with the other end of the upper jacket in the column axial direction so as to be slidable with respect to the upper jacket. The lower jacket is supported by a support member fixed to a vehicle body. At the time of a secondary collision, a first sliding member generates a first resistive force by performing first relative sliding with respect to the upper jacket, and a second sliding member which is moved together with the first sliding member in the column axial direction generates a second resistive force by performing second relative sliding with respect to the support member and the lower jacket.

Provided is a steering system that is configured to absorb a secondary collision shock load and achieves high vibration rigidity with a simple structure. A lower jacket is externally fitted to an upper jacket in a slidable manner. A support member that supports the lower jacket includes a fixed portion that is fixed to a vehicle body. A shock of a secondary collision is absorbed by a shock absorbing mechanism. The shock absorbing mechanism includes second slide members configured to move together with the upper jacket, and to frictionally slide relative to the support member upon a secondary collision. The second slide member includes a sandwiched portion that is sandwiched between the support member and the lower jacket, and a transmitting portion that is brought into contact with both of the lower jacket and the support member at a position closer to the fixed portion than the sandwiched portion.

A first sliding member is held by an upper jacket. A second sliding member includes a fixed portion fixed to the first sliding member, and an extension portion that extends in a column axis direction and that has a coupled portion coupled to the fixed portion at a predetermined location in the column axis direction. The second sliding member being clamped by the clamping mechanism slides relative to a supporting member and a lower jacket during a secondary impact. The second sliding member includes a slit that reduces coupling stiffness between the fixed portion and the coupled portion of the extension portion so as to facilitate, in a clamping state of the clamping mechanism, deflection of the coupled portion of the extension portion relative to the fixed portion in a lateral direction as seen from the column axis direction.

Steering apparatus

A support shaft includes a first supported portion and a second supported portion supported by respective support holes of a pair of fastened portions. The support shaft includes a large-diameter portion including the first supported portion, a small-diameter portion including the second supported portion and having a diameter smaller than the large-diameter portion, and a stepped portion formed between the large-diameter portion and the small-diameter portion. The small-diameter portion includes a tapered portion provided in the small-diameter portion so as to be adjacent to the stepped portion and having a diameter gradually decreasing toward the stepped portion, a first to-be-broken portion placed in a smallest-diameter portion of the tapered portion so as to be broken at a time of a secondary collision, and a second to-be-broken portion placed adjacent to the second supported portion so as to be broken at the time of the secondary collision.

A steering system includes a column jacket including a lower jacket and an upper jacket; an engagement member; a retaining member; and a buffer member that is retained by the retaining member and contacts the engagement member in a contact direction at a time when the upper jacket is displaced to one sliding end. The retaining member includes a support surface that supports the buffer member; paired holding portions that are respectively disposed on both sides of the buffer member in a circumferential direction of the upper jacket and hold the buffer member toward the support surface; and a restriction portion configured to be engaged with an end of the buffer member on a side toward which an opposite direction is directed, so as to restrict movement of the buffer member in the opposite direction, the opposite direction being opposite to the contact direction.

In a steering system, a pair of first tooth rows that is movable integrally with an upper jacket includes first teeth each of which has a tooth trace extending in an up-down direction Z and which is arranged at a pitch in an axial direction. A tooth member shaped by compression molding includes a pair of second teeth provided on respective side surfaces of a pair of side surfaces of a body portion supported by a lower jacket, the side surfaces extending parallel to each other. The second teeth mesh with the respective first tooth rows in accordance with operation of an operation member that regulates extension and contraction of a column jacket. The second teeth have tooth tips displaced from each other by a distance shorter than a predetermined pitch.

Steering system and tooth member

A steering system includes a column jacket that can extend and contract in an axial direction as a result of relative movement between an inner jacket and an outer jacket that houses the inner jacket, a regulation member fixed to the outer jacket and passing through an insertion hole in the inner jacket, and an elastic member fixed to the outer jacket. At the time of vehicular collision, when the regulation member is sheared by a peripheral portion of the insertion hole in the inner jacket in conjunction with the relative movement between the inner jacket and the outer jacket, a tip portion of the elastic member is fitted in the insertion hole.

A steering system includes an upper jacket that is movable in an axial direction, a first stopper member fixed to the upper jacket, and a second stopper member on a vehicle body. When a lock and unlock mechanism unlocks the upper jacket, the second stopper member moves to an advanced position where the second stopper member faces the first stopper member in the axial direction. When the lock and unlock mechanism locks the upper jacket, the second stopper member moves to a retracted position where the second stopper member retracts from the advanced position.

When telescopic locking is released, a second tooth defining member interlocked with rotation of a clamping shaft via an interlocking mechanism (a driving member and a coupling shaft) acts to separate second teeth of the second tooth defining member from first teeth arranged in a column axial direction. At this time, the second teeth rotate in a circular-arc-like trajectory around a central axis of a support shaft, while the support shaft itself slides through a long groove formed in an outer jacket in the column axial direction. Thus, the movement trajectory of the second teeth during release of meshing engagement is in a direction approximately orthogonal to the column axial direction (the direction in which the first teeth are arranged).

Growing community of inventors

Kashihara, Japan

Masayoshi Sakuda