US 6,109,556 AGranted

Safety belt arrangement for motor vehicles

AssigneeTakata (Europe) Vehicle Safety Technology GmbH

InventorsRobert Kopetzky, Georg Bannert, Harry Hanna

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Abstract

A safety belt arrangement for motor vehicles, comprising at least one safety belt, which is wound to a greater or lesser degree around a belt reel which is rotatably secured about an axis of rotation to the vehicle chassis and which is biased in the belt winding up direction by a retraction mechanism and which also has, in particular, a draw-out blocking mechanism which blocks rapid drawing out of the safety belt and/or further drawing out of the safety belt in the event of accident dependent accelerations of the motor vehicle, wherein a ratchet wheel is rotationally fixedly coupled to the belt reel and cooperates with a latching pawl fixed to the housing, which can be engaged and disengaged in such a way that when the latching pawl is engaged into the ratchet wheel a rolling up movement of the belt reel by the spring retraction mechanism is possible but not, however, a pulling out of the safety belt; and wherein the latching pawl can be engaged and disengaged, with respect to the ratchet wheel, by an actuating element, in particular by a cam ring, via a step-down transmission in such a way that the latching pawl (a) is disengaged when the safety belt is at least substantially fully drawn in, and (b) is engaged when the safety belt is at least substantially fully drawn out.

Claims14

Dependent claims

Safety belt arrangement for motor vehicles, comprising at least one safety belt, which is wound to a greater or lesser degree around a belt reel which is rotatably secured about an axis of rotation to the vehicle chassis, and which is biased in the belt winding up direction by a retraction mechanism and which also has, in particular, a draw-out blocking mechanism which blocks rapid drawing out of the safety belt and/or further drawing out of the safety belt in the event of accident dependent accelerations of the motor vehicle, wherein a ratchet wheel is rotationally fixedly coupled to the belt reel and cooperates with a latching pawl fixed to the housing, which can be engaged and disengaged in such a way that when the latching pawl is engaged into the ratchet wheel a rolling up movement of the belt reel by the retraction mechanism is possible but not, however, a pulling out of the safety belt;

and wherein the latching pawl can be engaged and disengaged, with respect to the ratchet wheel, by an actuating element, in particular by a cam ring, via a step-down transmission in such a way that the latching pawl:
is disengaged when the safety belt is at least substantially fully drawn in, and
is engaged when the safety belt is at least substantially fully drawn out,
wherein the step-down transmission has an inner toothed ring fixed to the housing and concentric to the axis of rotation, a control gear which meshes with the inner toothed ring and has a smaller diameter such that it can roll off on the inner toothed ring and also has a different number of teeth in comparison to the number of teeth of the inner toothed ring;
wherein an eccentric bearing is provided between the central axis of the control gear which is eccentric to the axis of rotation of the belt reel and the axis of rotation of the belt reel, and
wherein the inner toothed ring and the control gear are so formed that the control gear rotates through approximately a half turn when the belt is transferred from the fully drawn in to the fully drawn out condition.

3 more elements

Safety belt arrangement for motor vehicles having at least one safety belt (11), which is wound to a greater or lesser degree around a belt reel (13) which is rotatably secured about an axis of rotation (12) to the vehicle chassis (14) and which is biased in the belt winding up direction, by a retraction mechanism (15), and which also has in particular a draw-out blocking mechanism (38, 43) which blocks further drawing out of the safety belt (11) only through rapid drawing out of the safety belt and/or with accident dependent accelerations of the motor vehicle, wherein a ratchet wheel is rotationally fixedly coupled to the belt reel and cooperates with a latching pawl fixed to the housing, which can be engaged and disengaged in such a way that when the latching pawl is engaged into the ratchet wheel a rolling up movement of the belt reel bv the spring retraction mechanism is possible but not, however, a pulling out of the safety belt;

and wherein the latching pawl can be engaged and disengaged, with respect to the ratchet wheel, by an actuating element, in particular bv a cam ring, via a step-down transmission in such a way that:
the latching pawl is disengaged when the safety belt is at least substantially fully drawn in, and
is engaged when the safety belt is at least substantially fully drawn out,
wherein a control gear (21) is connected to the belt reel (13) via an eccentric transmission (34, 27, 28) and has at its periphery a toothed arrangement (40) which is surrounded by an inner toothed ring (20) fixed to the housing and of larger diameter and with a complementary internal toothed arrangement (41) but a smaller or larger number of teeth in such a way that the control gear (21) stands in meshing engagement with the inner toothed ring (20), in each case in a restricted peripheral region, and the two toothed arrangements (40, 41) have a radial spacing diametrically opposite thereto such that the control gear (21) rolls off on the inner toothed ring (20) on rotation of the belt reel (13), with the total pull-out length of the safety belt (11) corresponding to an angle of rotation of the control gear (21) relative to the axis of rotation (12) of substantially 180.degree.;
and in that the instantaneous angular position of the control gear (21) is used as a measure for the degree of draw-out of the safety belt (11).

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.