The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 04, 1990
Filed:
Jun. 08, 1989
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., Yokohama, JP;
Abstract
To effectively absorb shocks applied to both a rim and a cover pad of a steering wheel simultaneously or separately in spite of a simple construction, the steering wheel comprises a shock absorbing member disposed under the cover pad and sandwiched between upper and lower plates, and a spoke fixing plate for connecting radially inner ends of spokes to a middle peripheral surface of the shock absorbing member. A shock applied to the rim is mainly absorbed by the lower portion of the absorbing member by shearing deformation thereof and a shock applied to the cover pad is mainly absorbed by the upper portion of the absorbing member by compressive deformation thereof. Further, to uniformly absorb shocks applied to the cover pad at various points and in different directions, a support base having a projection is disposed under the lower plate (on which the shock absorbing member is arranged) to reduce the rigidity of the shock absorbing member. Furthermore, it is preferable to connect an additional W-shaped cross-section shock absorbing plate to a hollow cylindrical shock absorbing member via upper and lower plates for providing further uniform shock absorbing characteristics irrespective of points and directions at and in which a shock is applied.