Deformable structure for protection of vehicle occupants
AssigneeVolkswagen Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsJohann Siebels, Knut Schmidt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A deformable structure for occupant protection in vehicles has hollow energy-absorbing elements which are disposed between walls or other components. The hollow bodies are tube portions which are predeformed perpendicularly to their longitudinal axes and which are disposed with the tube axes parallel to the walls individually in a predeterminable arrangement or joined together in single-layer or multilayer fashion, and wherein the degree of predeformation is between 0.1% and 85% of the open width of the undeformed tube in the direction of the deformation impact force.
Claims10
A deformable structure for occupant protection in vehicles comprising a plurality of hollow bodies disposed between vehicle walls wherein the hollow bodies are tube portions which are predeformed in a direction perpendicular to their axes to cause the tube portions to absorb by deformation the energy of an impact applied in a direction transverse to the axes of the tube portions while avoiding an initial peak in impact resisting force and which are disposed with the tube axes parallel to the vehicle walls and wherein the degree of predeformation is between 0.1% and 85% of the open width of an undeformed tube in the direction of impact application.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.