Energy absorbing structure for side portion of vehicle body

An energy absorbing structure for a side portion of a vehicle body, comprising:

• a plastically deformable energy absorbing member which is disposed at a predetermined position in the side portion of the vehicle body against which a side portion of an upper part of a vehicle occupant's body hits during a side collision, said energy absorbing member being arranged such that a longitudinal direction thereof coincides with a longitudinal direction of the vehicle body, a cross section of said energy absorbing member being formed in a shape of a substantially hollow ellipse in which a direction of a short axis thereof is a transverse direction of the vehicle body and a direction of a long axis thereof is a vertical direction of the vehicle body, a wall thickness of said energy absorbing member being set such that wall thicknesses of long-axis portions thereof corresponding to the long axis are greater than wall thicknesses of short-axis portions thereof corresponding to the short axis,
• wherein the ellipticity of said energy absorbing member is set to approximately 0.7, and a ratio of the wall thicknesses of the short-axis portions to the wall thicknesses of the long-axis portions of said energy absorbing member is set to be greater than or equal to 0.3 and not more than 0.6, and said energy absorbing member is provided with a plurality of straight portions disposed in each of the long-axis portions for enhancing rigidity in the transverse direction of the vehicle body.