Safety device for protecting the passenger of a motor vehicle from injury in a collision

US5388860A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Dynamit Nobel GmbH · DE

Inventors

• Uwe Brede · Ergolding, DE
• Josef Kraft · Starnberg, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 28, 1994
• Grant date: Feb 14, 1995
• Expiry date: Feb 28, 2014

Classification

• Technology area (CPC B): Performing Operations; Transporting
• CPC primary: B60R2021/2765
• WIPO field: Transport
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

The safety device has a gas generator for generating gas, which is accommodated in a rigid housing. The housing is open at one side and is sealed in this region by an originally folded sheet of a gas cushion. When igniting the gas generator, the sheet unfolds outwards over the open side and forms the gas cushion filled with gas under pressure. The gas escapes by way of at least one escape opening, formed in a housing wall, with a variable effective cross-sectional area, when the passenger pitches into the gas cushion. The effective cross-sectional area is altered by a temperature-controlled escape opening-adjusting device so that at high gas internal pressures, the cross-sectional area is greater than at lower gas internal pressures. With this arrangement, the temperature-dependent alterations in the catching or impact reduction characteristic of the gas cushion are thereby compensated for.