Sliding doors and seals system for passenger vehicle

Abstract

A sliding doors and seals system and a passenger vehicle having such system with the latter including inflatable seals and weather seals arranged to conceal and protect the inflatable seals against direct and even indirect contamination and tampering therewith and such as to provide a failsafe feature whereby a pair of sliding doors will be frictionally retained closed by one inflatable seal alone upon failure of the other inflatable seal. This system comprises a side wall having a door aperture and defining a pair of lateral edge portions extending along the opposite lateral edges of the door aperture, a pair of three-sided inflatable seals cooperatively extending longitudinally along the full periphery of the door aperture and each having a lateral portion secured against the corresponding lateral edge portion of the side wall, a pair of static seals secured against each lateral edge portion on the opposite sides respectively of the corresponding lateral portion of the inflatable seals, one static seal outward of the corresponding inflatable seal forming a static weather seal engaging the internal border of the corresponding sliding door, the lateral edge portions of the side wall and the seals against it remain overlapped or covered by the corresponding sliding door for any position of the doors, the inflatable seals are separately pressurized and the doors are positively interconnected by a cable to provide the above mentioned failsafe feature.