US 4,358,154 AGranted

Vehicle crashworthy seat

AssigneeBoeing Vertol Company

InventorRichard F. Campbell

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Abstract

A crashworthy helicopter crew seat, which includes a seat bucket connected to a support structure by an adjustable energy attenuator of the wire bending type. The attenuator includes a frame carried by the seat bucket, three parallel, vertically disposed wires connected at opposite ends to the attenuator frame, and a trolley assembly affixed to the support structure containing three sets of three rollers, rotatable about three vertically spaced horizontal axes, about which the three wires are respectfully bent and unbent as the seat bucket strokes downward during a crash of the helicopter. The lower two rollers of two of these sets of three rollers are displaceable along their axes between an engaged position and a disengaged position relative to a wire associated with these rollers. These displaceable rollers are connected to a manually operated attenuator adjustment mechanism having a maximum setting at which all rollers are engaged with their associated wires, an intermediate setting at which only two of the three sets of three rollers are engaged with their associated wires, and a minimum setting at which only one wire is engaged with the set of three rollers which is not connected to the adjustment mechanism. By selecting a maximum, intermediate, and minimum settings of the adjustment mechanism in accordance with the weight of the seat occupant, the maximum stroke distance of the seat is reduced without detrimentally affecting the protection afforded the occupant of the seat against dangerous acceleration forces.

Claims12

Dependent claims

In a crash survivable seat arrangement for a vehicle which includes two elements, namely a seat assembly and a support structure, occupant restraint means for securing a vehicle occupant to the seat assembly, seat assembly connecting means for connecting the seat assembly to the support structure to allow translation of the seat assembly relative to the support structure along a predetermined path of travel, and energy attenuating means for controlling the translation of the seat assembly relative to the support structure in a given direction along the path of travel during a crash, the improvement wherein the energy attenuating means comprises:

a plurality of spaced apart, parallel arranged, wires having opposite ends affixed to one element of the two elements and extending substantially parallel to said path of travel;
wire bending means, carried by the other element of the two elements and engaged with at least one wire of said plurality of wires, for bending said at least one wire during translation of the seat assembly in the given direction relative to the support structure, said wire bending means preventing translation of the seat assembly until a predetermined force acts in the given direction on the seat assembly;
and
engaging means, connected between the other element and the wire bending means, for progressively engaging or disengaging the wire bending means with the plurality of wires, said engaging means having a maximum engagement setting at which the wire bending means is engaged with all wires of the plurality of wires and a minimum engagement setting at which the wire bending means is engaged with at least one wire of said plurality of wires.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.