US 6,142,507 A · Side air bag

Abstract

A front and a back cloth body are bonded at the edges to form a bag. The bag is inflated from an air bag device disposed on a seat back so that it expands between a seat and a side door, thus protecting a passenger over a range from a torso to a head. The bag contains a supply section which holds an inflator that injects a pressurized fluid into the bag. A torso protection section, contiguous with the supply section, extends forward from the supply section. A head protection section, contiguous with the torso protection section, extends upward from the torso protection section. When the inflator is activated pressurized fluid is injected to expand head protection section. The resulting inflation pressure tends to make front side air bag pivot around the supply portion. To prevent this, in one embodiment an auxiliary section is inflated with a pressure in a direction opposite to the rotation at roughly the same time as the expansion of the head protection section. In another embodiment, the head protection section and the torso protection section are folded diagonally toward each other. In yet another embodiment, fuse stitches are used to delay the inflation of the head protection until after the torso protection section is inflated. The side air bag is then folded or rolled into the air bag device.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A side air bag comprising:

a bag with a supply section;
an inflator sealed in said supply section;
a torso protection section contiguous to and extending forward from said supply section;
a head protection section contiguous to and extending upward from said torso protection section;
preventing means for preventing said head protection section from pivoting toward said supply section during inflation thereof;
said preventing means includes at least one auxiliary section for applying an anti-rotational force to said head protection section;
and
said preventing means includes a corner of a rear end of said head protection section folded toward a front end of said air bag, and a corner of a front end of said torso protection section folded toward a rear end of said air bag, thereby creating folded sections with horizontal portions of said folded sections being substantially parallel to one another.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Side air bag

Life of this patent

Side air bag

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims14