Vehicular sealing member having a spacer inserted in a hollow lip portion thereof
AssigneeKinugawa Rubber Ind. Co., Ltd.
InventorsHiroshi Jinma, Toshimitsu Shimizu, Toshikatsu Haraikawa
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A spacer for a sealing member, such as a weather-strip, of an opening/closing member of automotive vehicle to prevent collapse of a hollow lip portion of the sealing member at corner portions thereof. The spacer may be formed cylindrically, or so as to conform to a shape of an inner surface of the hollow lip. In addition, an out wall of the spacer is segmented and formed with a bellows, or accordion-like configuration such that when the spacer, or any portion thereof, is contracted due to bending, or the like, affected segments or portions thereof at the spacer wall contract and are aligned so as to provide a substantially rigid, contiguous surface at the contraction.
Claims7
A vehicular sealing member comprising:
- a hollow lip portion having a curved portion;
- and
- a spacer inserted in the hollow lip portion to prevent flattening of the hollow lip portion at the curved portion,
- wherein the spacer comprises a flexibly resilient tube having a substantially cylindrical outer wall,
- wherein the cylindrical outer wall comprises a plurality of adjacently arranged bellow segments having external V-shaped grooves formed therebetween on an outer periphery of the cylindrical outer wall and having internal V-shaped grooves formed therebetween on an inner periphery of the cylindrical outer wall, the external grooves and the internal grooves alternating to form trapezoidal cross-sectional segments having a flat cross-sectional outer segment between two adjacent external grooves and a flat cross-sectional inner segment between two adjacent internal grooves, the flat outer and inner segments being alternatingly arranged, and
- wherein when all or part of the cylindrical outer wall is contracted, the flat outer segments join to form a substantially continuous external surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.