Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Aisin Keikinzoku Kabushiki Kaisha

Shotaro Okamura

Masayoshi Takahashi

Joichi Bansho

Kazuyuki Fujiwara

Hiroaki Yamao

Satoshi Shimomura

An energy absorbing structure for a side portion of a vehicle body includes a plastically deformable energy absorbing member which is disposed at a predetermined position in the side portion of the vehicle body against which a side portion of an upper part of a vehicle occupant's body hits during a side collision, the energy absorbing member being arranged such that a longitudinal direction thereof coincides with a longitudinal direction of the vehicle body, a cross section of the energy absorbing member being formed in the shape of a substantially hollow ellipse in which a direction of a short axis thereof is a transverse direction of the vehicle body and a direction of a long axis thereof is a vertical direction of the vehicle body, the wall thickness of the energy absorbing member being set such that the wall thicknesses of long-axis portions thereof corresponding to the long axis are greater than the wall thicknesses of short-axis portions thereof corresponding to the short axis.

Energy absorbing structure for side portion of vehicle body

An air bag cover opening mechanism for an air bag for use in a vehicle. An air bag cover for closing an opening provided in an air bag case with an air bag accommodated therein has at one end thereof a hinge formed integrally with an inner surface layer of the air bag cover. A slit is provided in the inner surface layer of the air bag cover at the other end thereof to allow one end of a retainer to be retained therein. The other end portion of the retainer has a hole. With this hole aligned with a hole provided in a side wall of the air bag case, a spacer is inserted into the aligned holes, and a bolt is threadedly inserted into an internally threaded hole provided in the spacer and is tightened, thereby allowing the retainer to be rotatably held onto the air bag case and the other end of the air bag cover to be fixed. At the time of inflation of the air bag, the retainer rotates such that only a tensile load oriented in the same direction as the direction of a load applied to the air bag cover acts on the retainer, allowing a breaking portion of the retainer to be broken.

Air bag cover opening mechanism for use in vehicle

An air bag door fastening structure having an air bag door including a base layer of synthetic resin, coupled at one side end thereof through hinges with an instrument panel and at the other side end thereof through breakaway members with the instrument panel characterized in that each breakaway member comprises two fastening portions integrally coupled through a thin integral hinge with each other as a coupler in such a manner that one fastening portion is coupled fixedly with the base layer or integrated with the base layer and the other fastening portion is coupled fixedly with the instrument panel.

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Toyota, Japan

Shotaro Okamura