Sliding door structure

A sliding door structure comprising:

• a door body;
• a vehicle body rail that is provided to a vehicle body so as to extend along a door opening-and-closing direction in a straight line shape;
• a vehicle body rail support member that is configured to include a vehicle body-side end portion coupled to the vehicle body rail and capable of moving along the vehicle body rail, and a door-side end portion coupled to the door body, the vehicle body rail support member being capable of rotating with respect to the vehicle body about the vehicle body-side end portion, and the vehicle body rail support member being capable of rotating with respect to the door body about the door-side end portion;
• a door rail that is provided to the door body so as to extend along the door opening-and-closing direction in a straight line shape;
• and
• a door rail support member that is configured to include a door-side end portion coupled to the door rail and capable of moving along the door rail, and a vehicle body-side end portion coupled to the vehicle body, the door rail support member being capable of rotating with respect to the door body about the door-side end portion, and the door rail support member being capable of rotating with respect to the vehicle body about the vehicle body-side end portion, wherein
• the sliding door structure further comprises a column that is provided to a door-closing direction side end portion of the vehicle body rail, and an opening that is provided to the vehicle body-side end portion of the vehicle body rail support member,
• in a fully closed state, the column intrudes into the opening such that the column is positioned at a rotation center of the vehicle body rail support member with respect to the vehicle body, and an opening direction of the opening faces in a direction angled toward a vehicle inner side with respect to a door-closing direction,
• when a sliding door comprising the door body opens from the fully closed state, the vehicle body rail support member rotates about the column with respect to the vehicle body while the column remains in a state intruding into the opening,
• when the sliding door opens from the fully closed state, until the opening direction comes into alignment with the door-closing direction, movement of the vehicle body-side end portion of the vehicle body rail support member along the vehicle body rail in a door-opening direction is restricted due to receiving a reaction force toward the door-closing direction from the column intruding into the opening, and
• when the opening direction aligns with the door-closing direction, the restriction of movement of the vehicle body-side end portion of the vehicle body rail support member along the vehicle body rail in the door-opening direction is released due to no longer receiving the reaction force toward the door-closing direction from the column intruding into the opening.