Pivoting Protective Fender for Child Car Seat Side Impact
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional child car safety seats are inadequate in reducing side impacts during collisions, which poses a significant risk to child safety.
Innovation Solution
A lateral shock absorber system is integrated into the child car safety seat, featuring a protective fender and locking mechanism that pivots between folded and unfolded states, utilizing a resilient component and locking mechanism to absorb and redirect side impacts away from the child.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If a conventional child car safety seat with only backrest and headrest is used, then the structure is simple, but it cannot effectively reduce side impact on the child
Solution Approach 1:
The protective fender is designed to be pivotally switchable between folded and unfolded states, transforming from a static structure to a dynamic one. This allows the side impact protection system to be deployed only when needed, resolving the contradiction between providing side impact reduction and maintaining simple structure during normal use.
Solution Approach 2:
The protective fender is divided into multiple segments or sections that can fold against each other. This segmentation allows the structure to be compact when folded while still providing adequate protection when unfolded, addressing both the need for simplicity and side impact reduction.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the protective fender is always in unfolded state, then side impact protection is provided, but it increases device complexity and occupies more space
Solution Approach 1:
The protective fender transitions from a static always-unfolded state to a dynamic foldable state, allowing it to occupy minimal space during normal use and only deploy when side impact protection is required, thus resolving the space occupation issue.
Solution Approach 2:
The protective fender sections are designed to nest or fold against each other when not in use, similar to nested dolls, minimizing the space occupied while maintaining the capability to provide full protection when needed.
3Ease of operation
If the protective fender is made movable and foldable, then space is saved, but it requires a locking mechanism increasing device complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The locking mechanism is designed to automatically engage and lock the protective fender in its unfolded position through self-locking features, eliminating the need for complex manual locking systems and reducing overall device complexity while maintaining space efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
A resilient component acts as an intermediary between the protective fender and the locking mechanism, providing automatic engagement and disengagement forces that simplify the locking system design while enabling reliable space-efficient folding.
4Reliability
If a locking mechanism is added to control the protective fender, then reliability of protection is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The locking mechanism automatically locks and unlocks based on the protective fender's position and impact forces, eliminating the need for manual operation by caregivers while ensuring reliable protection engagement, thus improving both reliability and ease of operation simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The locking mechanism incorporates feedback from the protective fender's position and impact detection to automatically determine when locking is required, ensuring reliable protection only when needed while simplifying operation for caregivers.
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 system effectively reduces the risk of injury from side impacts by transferring collision forces to the seat base, providing enhanced protection and ease of operation for caregivers.
Implementation Method 1
a resilient component (33) for biasing the protective fender (31) to switch to the unfolded state
Implementation Method 2
a locking mechanism (35) for selectively engaging with the protective fender (31) to restrain the protective fender (31) from switching to the unfolded state
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention discloses a lateral shock absorber disposed on a base of a child car safety seat. The lateral shock absorber includes a protective fender. An end of the protective fender is pivoted to the base, so that the protective fender is pivotally switchable between a folded state and an unfolded state relative to the base. The unfolded protective fender can collide with a car body during a side impact collision for transferring a side impact to the base and away from a child sitting in the child car safety seat. Therefore, it can effectively reduce a risk of injury or death of the child due to the side impact and provide enhanced protection for the child. Furthermore, the lateral shock absorber has advantages of simple structure and easy operation. Besides, the present invention further discloses a child car safety seat with the aforementioned lateral shock absorber.