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. 13, 2011
Filed:
Feb. 11, 2009
Daniel D. Ralston, Farmington Hills, MI (US);
Kevin E. Holdren, Tecumseh, CA;
Kenneth R. Bastien, Howell, MI (US);
David Gorman, Royal Oak, MI (US);
Amit Kulkarni, Farmington Hills, MI (US);
Daniel D. Ralston, Farmington Hills, MI (US);
Kevin E. Holdren, Tecumseh, CA;
Kenneth R. Bastien, Howell, MI (US);
David Gorman, Royal Oak, MI (US);
Amit Kulkarni, Farmington Hills, MI (US);
Shape Corp., Grand Haven, MI (US);
Abstract
A vehicle bumper system includes an elongated reinforcement beam for mounting to a vehicle frame and an energy absorber abutting a front surface of the reinforcement beam. The energy absorber includes longitudinally-elongated hollow crush lobes configured to crush and absorb energy upon a vehicle crash, the crush lobes including interconnected top, bottom, side and front walls. At least one opposing pair of the walls, such as the top and bottom walls, are elongated parallel a length of the beam to define enlarged areas that are generally unsupported, but the one pair of walls further include a plurality of spaced external ribs extending perpendicular to the length for stabilizing the enlarged areas.