Active Inflatable Bladder for Vehicle Seat Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional airbags and active bolsters face challenges in being effectively deployed in close proximity to occupants within a seat without significant size, weight, and cost issues, particularly during side impact events, where they struggle to retain occupants within the seat and provide adequate protection.
Innovation Solution
An integrated seat with an inflatable bladder interfacing with a rigid seat frame, featuring a gas chamber and an outer cushion layer, which can be elastically deformed to support loads and expand during a crash event to enhance occupant retention and protection, using an inflator to discharge gas and extend the seat support surface.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional airbags are deployed in close proximity to occupants, then occupant protection is improved, but size, weight, and cost increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the airbag and bolster functions into a single integrated assembly. The inflatable bladder is positioned within the seat cushion to provide both airbag protection and bolster support simultaneously, eliminating the need for separate airbag and bolster systems. This integration reduces overall size, weight, and cost while maintaining occupant protection effectiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The inflatable bladder assembly serves multiple functions: it provides airbag protection during crashes, offers bolster support for occupant retention, and maintains a compact form factor. This multi-functional design allows a single component to replace what would traditionally require multiple separate systems, addressing the size, weight, and cost concerns.
2Reliability
If airbags are packaged within a seat, then close proximity protection is achieved, but packaging space is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The inflatable bladder is nested within the seat cushion structure, utilizing the existing seat volume efficiently. The bladder is positioned between the seat frame and the outer cushion layer, allowing it to deploy into close proximity of the occupant without requiring additional external packaging space. This nested arrangement achieves compact integration while maintaining protection effectiveness.
3Strength
If the bladder is made rigid for load-bearing, then structural support is improved, but elastic deformation capability is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The bladder is designed with varying local properties: it has rigid portions that interface with the seat frame to provide structural support and load-bearing capability, while other portions remain flexible to allow elastic deformation for comfort and crash energy absorption. This local quality differentiation enables the bladder to simultaneously achieve strength and deformability.
Solution Approach 2:
The bladder construction incorporates composite material properties, combining rigid structural elements for load-bearing with flexible materials for elastic deformation. This composite approach allows different regions of the bladder to exhibit different mechanical properties, achieving both structural support and comfort requirements.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively retains occupants within the seat during crashes, providing a protective barrier around the body while reducing motion towards other vehicle structures, and is designed to be more compact and cost-effective than conventional solutions.
Implementation Method 1
An inflator is responsive to the occurrence of the crash event to discharge an inflation gas into the gas chamber to expand the inflatable bladder from the standby state to the deployed state
Implementation Method 2
The gas chamber is configured to be load-bearing when in the standby state so that the inflatable bladder elastically deforms to support a load applied against the outer cushion layer
Data Source
AI summary
An active bolster is integrated within a seat for a transportation vehicle by covering an inner inflatable bladder with an outer cushion layer to provide a seating support surface. Seating loads are borne on the support surface from the weight of an occupant by elastic deformation of the bladder. When a vehicle crash event is detected, at least a portion of the bladder is inflated to extend a seat surface to protect the occupant. Size and weight of the seat are reduced as a result of the bladder contributing significantly to the normal cushioning of the seat in everyday usage.