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:
Dec. 30, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 12, 2002
Martyn Neil Palliser, Carlisle, GB;
John Bell, Carlisle, GB;
Andrew Park, Sterling Heights, MI (US);
Breed Automotive Technology, Inc., Lakeland, FL (US);
Abstract
A seat belt retractor has a spool mounted for rotation in the retractor for retraction or pay-out of seat belt webbing depending upon the rotation direction of the spool. A locking ring is attached to one end of the spool. A lock bar locks the locking ring against rotation when a crash is sensed. A load limiter allows further pay-out of the seat belt webbing after the spool has locked under the influence of a vehicle occupant's forward momentum. The load limiter is a torsion bar attached at one end to the locking ring and at the other end to the spool; and a wire releasably coupled in the force path between the spool and the locking ring. The resilient mechanism, i.e. the wire, decouples itself after a predetermined number of turns of the torsion bar. The thickness, length and composition of the wire, together with the number of wires may be chosen to suit a vehicle's crash criteria.