Device for inflating an airbag accommodated in a steering wheel

Abstract

A device for rapidly inflating an airbag. The airbag is accommodated in a steering wheel. The device has a housing, a compressed-gas container, a pyrotechnical propellant, a primer, a thruster, and a rupture disk. The propellant and the primer are accommodated in the housing. The housing also accommodates a gas-combining chamber with an outlet to the airbag and a part between the compressed-gas container and the gas-combining chamber and closed off by the rupture disk. The thruster destroys the rupture disk when the propellant ignites, allowing the combined gaseous products of the combustion of the propellant and the gas to escape into the airbag. The compressed-gas container is tubular and can be accommodated coaxial with or inside the steering-wheel column. The outlet to the airbag and the port in the housing comprise bores in the housing that essentially parallel the axis of the steering-wheel column. The space needed to accommodate the propellant, the primer, the thruster, and the rupture disk in the housing comprises a graduated-diameter cylindrical recess at a right angle to the axis of the steering-wheel column. The effective path traveled by the thruster and the rupture disk is coaxial with the recess.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.