Other

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.

Norio Urushi

Mitsuyoshi Ohno

Toshinori Tanase

Takashi Yamamoto

Choko Tanabe

Hiroshi Ishiyama

Minoru Chida

Etsuji Saito

Yoshiharu Furukawa

Kenichi Nakajima

A head protecting air bag apparatus includes a lid and an air bag. The lid is disposed at an upper edge side periphery of an opening at a vehicle's inner side in a vehicle body and at an upper portion of a pillar portion. The air bag is attached to the vehicle's inner side of the vehicle body, is housed at a vehicle's outer side position of the lid in a folded state, and pushes and opens the lid to cover the opening when unfolding and expansion is caused by inflow of gas for expansion. The air bag is folded so that a lower edge side approaches an upper edge side, and an attachment portion at the upper edge side is attached to the vehicle body so that the air bag is housed at the vehicle's outer side of the lid. A part of a lower end of the lid is disposed at a vehicle's outer side of an upper end of a pillar garnish covering a vehicle's inner side of the pillar portion. A part of the air bag at a position where the lower end of the lid is disposed at the vehicle's outer side of the upper end of the pillar garnish has a more intensified force to push and open the lid than another part. In the head protecting air bag apparatus of the invention, when the air bag is unfolded and expanded, the lower end of the lid disposed at the vehicle's outer side of the upper end of the pillar garnish easily gets over the upper end of the pillar garnish. Then the air bag is smoothly unfolded and expanded.

Head protecting air bag apparatus

An air bag is stored in the upper fringe of the openings on the cabin-inside side, while being folded. The air bag includes a gas inflow part for flowing inflation gas into the air bag, and a main body that inflates when receiving the inflation gas. The main body includes front- and rear-seat inflation chambers, and a gas passage extending forwardly from the gas inflow part and allowing the inflation gas to flow from inflow ports opened in the upper parts of the front- and rear-seat inflation chambers to the front- and rear-seat inflation chambers per se. The inflow port of the rear-seat inflation chamber is opened in a direction substantially orthogonal to an axial direction of the gas passage. A front-side peripheral edge is disposed to be higher than a rear-side peripheral edge.

Air bag in use for head protection air bag device

An air bag is stored along the peripheral edge of the upper fringe of an opening on the indoor side in a state that it is covered with a door of an air bag cover and folded. When receiving inflation gas, the air bag forcibly opens the door and develops and inflates downward so as to cover the opening. In a region of an inflating section to which gas for inflation flows, a plurality of thickness defining members, which couple the cabin-inside side wall with the cabin-outside side wall to make a thickness of the inflating section uniform, are arranged side by side in the front/rear direction, while extending in the vertical direction. The thickness defining member disposed near the unsmooth development part of the door is disposed such that the upper end thereof is located at a position lower than the upper end of the thickness defining member.

A structure for mounting a head-protecting airbag body which inflates in the form of a curtain at least along a roof side rail across a B pillar is provided with an airbag body expansion direction restricting member which is disposed on the roof side rail in the vicinity of a upper end portion of a B pillar garnish covering the B pillar and has a guide wall extending toward the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish, and moving restricting portions which are disposed on the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish and the airbag body expansion direction restricting member and engage each other when a side collision occurs so as to restrict movement of the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish. When a vehicle body is deformed upon a slide collision, the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish attempts to move in a vehicle occupant compartment inner direction. However, when the movement restricting means disposed on the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish and airbag body expansion direction restricting means engage each other, the movement of the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish in a vehicle occupant compartment inner direction is restricted, so that the airbag body during inflation is never caught by the upper end portion of the B pillar garnish.

Mounting structure for use with a head-protecting airbag body

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Norio Urushi