Motor Vehicle Door Lock Inertia Blocking Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing motor vehicle door lock systems face reliability issues due to unintentional opening during crashes, caused by inertia forces, which can be exacerbated by corrosion or aging, leading to incorrect functioning and uncheckable faults in catch lever mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
A motor vehicle door lock design where the catch lever remains permanently active in its blocking position during both normal operation and crashes, ensuring the rotary latch and locking mechanism remain blocked, with an elastic coupling to the release lever, preventing movement of the actuation lever unit during crashes and allowing controlled opening through a spring-activated mechanism.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a catch lever is used to block the actuation lever unit during abnormal acceleration forces, then unintentional opening during crashes is prevented, but functional reliability decreases due to corrosion or aging blocking the catch lever movement
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the traditional catch lever mechanism by making the catch lever permanently active in its blocking position rather than requiring movement to engage. The release lever with elastic coupling now performs the movement to disengage the blocking, reversing who moves and who stays stationary, thereby eliminating corrosion-related movement blocking
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the movement requirement from the catch lever itself, making it a stationary blocking element. The movement function is transferred to the release lever, which moves relative to the permanently positioned catch lever to achieve engagement/disengagement, removing the harmful effect of corrosion on catch lever movement
2Reliability
If the catch lever is made permanently active in blocking position, then functional reliability is improved and corrosion effects are eliminated, but the design complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
By inverting the mechanism so the catch lever remains stationary and permanently active, the design actually simplifies the overall system. The elastic coupling and release lever movement provide the necessary functionality without requiring complex mechanisms, achieving reliability improvement with minimal complexity increase
Solution Approach 2:
The elastic coupling automatically manages the engagement and disengagement of the catch lever through the natural movement of the release lever during door opening operations. The system serves itself by utilizing existing operational movements rather than requiring separate actuation mechanisms, maintaining design simplicity
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
This design enhances functional reliability and simplicity by preventing unintentional opening during crashes while ensuring the catch lever remains functional, reducing the risk of corrosion-induced failures and maintaining the locking mechanism in a blocked state under normal and crash conditions.
Implementation Method 1
an elastic coupling to the release lever (4), wherein the elastic coupling comprises a spring (8)
Implementation Method 2
blocking the locking mechanism at least when acceleration forces of a given magnitude occur, e.g. in case of an accident (crash)
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a motor vehicle door lock equipped with a locking mechanism, an actuation lever unit acting on the locking mechanism, and a catch lever. The catch lever blocks the locking mechanism at least when acceleration forces of a given magnitude occur, e.g. in case of an accident (crash), rendering the locking mechanism ineffective. According to the invention, the catch lever acts upon a rotary latch of the locking mechanism in the direction of the blocking position of the rotary latch during normal operation and in the event of a crash while allowing the rotary latch and thus the locking mechanism to be in the releasing position only during normal opening operation.