Child seat having a crush zone
AssigneeBritax Child Safety, Inc.
InventorsL. Curtis Strong, Christopher Glenn Franck, Ronald M. Marsilio
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A child safety seat is provided. The safety seat includes a generally L-shaped shell having a seat bottom and a seat back, a harness assembly carried by the shell for restraining an occupant in the seat, a restraining member for receiving a latching assembly for securing the safety seat into a support position on a vehicle seat in a manner, and at least one area of predetermined reduced material thickness formed into the shell in the rearward portion of the seat bottom. The area of reduce material thickness defines a crush zone of reduced capacity to resist a downward movement-induced load on the seat bottom indicative of the sudden forward travel decceleration of the vehicle.
Claims17
A child safety seat, comprising:
- (a) a generally L-shaped shell having a seat bottom and a seat back;
- (b) a harness assembly carried by the shell for restraining an occupant in the seat;
- (c) a restraining member for receiving a latching assembly for securing the safety seat into a support position on a vehicle seat in a manner whereby, upon a sudden forward travel decelleration of the vehicle, the seat back of the safety seat translates forward and the seat bottom of the safety seat translates downward toward the vehicle seat;
- and
- (d) at least one area of predetermined reduced material thickness formed into the shell in the rearward portion of the seat bottom and defining a crush zone of reduced capacity to resist a downward movement-induced load on the seat bottom indicative of the sudden forward travel decceleration of the vehicle, whereby the material in the crush zone crushes at a controlled rate for reducing the load that would otherwise be transmitted to the seat occupant.
The child safety seat according to claim 31 wherein the first crush region has a thickness between about 0.025 inches and about 0.060 inches.
A child safety seat, comprising:
- (a) a shell having a seat bottom and an attached seat back;
- (b) a harness assembly carried by the shell for restraining a child in the seat;
- (c) means for receiving a latching assembly for securing the safety seat to a vehicle seat;
- and
- (d) an area of reduce material thickness formed in a rearward portion of the seat bottom and defining a crush zone for resisting a generally downwardly extending force occurring during an impact.
A shell for a child safety seat, comprising:
- (a) a seat bottom and an attached seat back;
- and
- (b) an area of reduce material thickness formed in a rearward portion of the seat bottom and defining a crush zone for resisting a generally downwardly extending force occurring during an impact.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.