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AssigneeTextron Automotive Company Inc.
InventorsRobert W. Hlywka, Cameron J. Potts, Peter F. Czulo, Robert C. Cooper
Estimating the term…
A cover for covering an air bag in a motor vehicle has a thin elastic plastic skin, a rigid substrate and an intermediate layer of soft plastic foam. The skin has a tear seam and the substrate includes a door that is impacted by the inflating air bag and presses outward against the foam layer and the skin to tear the foam layer and the tear seam and then swing outward with a torn section of the foam layer and skin to form an opening in the cover for deployment of the air bag into the passenger space in the vehicle. The tear seam in the skin has a score line formed by partial perforations defined by tapered holes that are evenly spaced and formed at a controlled depth on the underside of the skin by a lasing method.
An air bag cover having an outer skin with a hidden tear seam characterized by a series of partial perforations in the inside of the skin having a hole size in the range of 0.020 to 0.035 inches and arranged on center at a range of 0.005 to 0.045 inches.
An air bag cover having an outer skin surface and an inner skin surface supported by a thickness;
A method for making a hidden tear seam in an air bag cover comprising the steps of providing a laser pulse sequence that is coordinated with a part feed speed on-the-fly to form uniformly spaced and controlled depth tapered hole patterns that will not read through to the visible surface of the cover.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.