Airbag Cushion Avoidance-Shaped Part for Mirror Interference
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Solution Overview
Problem
Airbag devices for front passenger seats often interfere with structures like room mirrors during deployment, leading to unstable behavior, incomplete inflation, and potential damage to the mirror, which can compromise occupant restraint and safety.
Innovation Solution
An airbag device configuration with a main bag and a center bag, featuring an avoidance-shaped part recessed downward to avoid contact with upper vehicle structures, allowing the center bag to deploy accurately and efficiently restrain occupants without contacting structures like room mirrors, and using a smaller inflator to reduce costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the cushion is inflated and deployed to fill the space between the instrument panel and the windshield, then the occupant restraint capability is improved, but the cushion may interfere with the room mirror suspended from the roof
Solution Approach 1:
The cushion is divided into multiple regions including a first region, second region, third region, and fourth region. The avoidance-shaped part is formed by making the third region recessed downward, creating a segmented structure that allows the cushion to deploy effectively while avoiding interference with the room mirror.
Solution Approach 2:
The avoidance-shaped part is created by recessing the third region downward in the vertical dimension, allowing the cushion to maintain its restraining function in the horizontal plane while avoiding the room mirror in the vertical space above.
2Force
If the cushion pushes the room mirror backward during inflation and deployment, then the cushion deployment force is sufficient, but the room mirror may drop and become shattered
Solution Approach 1:
The cushion is segmented into four regions with the third region recessed downward to form the avoidance-shaped part. This segmentation allows the cushion to apply deployment force through the first and second regions while the recessed third region creates clearance to avoid pushing the room mirror backward.
Solution Approach 2:
The avoidance-shaped part acts as an intermediary spatial feature that mediates between the cushion's deployment force and the room mirror's position, allowing force transmission to the occupant while preventing force transmission to the mirror.
3Productivity
If the cushion interferes with the room mirror, then the cushion may be inflated and deployed, but the behavior becomes instable and the cushion may not reach the target region
Solution Approach 1:
The cushion is divided into four functional regions with the third region recessed to create the avoidance-shaped part. This segmentation ensures stable deployment by allowing the first and second regions to advance forward while the recessed third region avoids interference, and the fourth region completes the deployment to the target region.
Data Source
Figure 1(a)~1(b)
Figure 2(a)~2(b)
Figure 3(a)~3(b)
AI summary
Provided is an airbag device capable of avoiding interference between a cushion and a structure at an upper part of a vehicle interior. An airbag device 100 provided in a vehicle having a prescribed structure 152 suspended from an upper part of a vehicle interior includes a cushion 108 inflated and deployed into a bag shape to restrain an occupant of a seat from a front side, and an avoidance-shaped part 154 provided at an upper part of the cushion 108 to avoid contact between the inflated and deployed cushion 108 and the structure 152, and the avoidance-shaped part 154 is recessed downward over a range between positions at prescribed distances from the structure 152 in vehicle forward and backward directions, respectively.