Side Airbag Pre-Push Chamber Layout for Faster Occupant Restraint
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional side airbag devices often fail to provide sufficient and prompt restraint to occupants during lateral impacts.
Innovation Solution
The side airbag device incorporates a pre-push chamber with an extension portion that extends rearward from the inflator, maintaining thickness during initial deployment to ensure broad occupant restraint, and is configured to deploy overlapping with the seat frame for enhanced stability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If the pre-push chamber is deployed forward rapidly, then the deployment speed is improved, but the thickness of the rear portion is reduced by momentum (pressure) to the front, causing insufficient restraint area
Solution Approach 1:
The extension portion is pre-configured to extend rearward from the inflator, creating a thick rear portion before deployment. This preliminary structural arrangement ensures that when the pre-push chamber deploys forward, the rear portion maintains sufficient thickness to provide broad restraint area, resolving the contradiction between deployment speed and restraint area
Solution Approach 2:
The extension portion adds a rearward dimension to the pre-push chamber structure, extending from the inflator toward the rear of the vehicle seat. This dimensional addition creates a thick rear portion that maintains restraint area while allowing forward deployment, effectively resolving the thickness reduction problem caused by forward momentum
2Volume of moving object
If the extension portion is folded toward the front to cover the inflator, then the stowage compactness is improved, but the deployment smoothness may be hindered if it enters between the inflator and seat frame
Solution Approach 1:
The extension portion is designed with specific local characteristics: it folds toward the front to cover only a part of the inflator (roughly 30% to 50% of the periphery) during stowage. This localized folding arrangement achieves compact stowage volume while preventing the extension portion from entering between the inflator and seat frame, thus maintaining deployment smoothness
3Stability of the object's composition
If the extension portion deploys to overlap with the seat frame, then the reaction surface is improved for stable deployment, but the configuration complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The extension portion is designed to automatically deploy and overlap with the seat frame during airbag deployment. The seat frame itself serves as the reaction surface, eliminating the need for additional structural components. This self-service approach achieves stable deployment while avoiding increased configuration complexity
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 configuration enables rapid and reliable restraint of occupants by maintaining the pre-push chamber's thickness and utilizing the seat frame as a reaction surface, thereby improving occupant safety during accidents.
Implementation Method 1
an inflator provided in a side wall part of a seat frame in the vehicle width direction extending in the vehicle traveling direction when a horizontal cross section of the vehicle seat is viewed from above, that supplies expansion gas to the airbag
Data Source
AI summary
A side airbag device stowed in a side part of a vehicle seat and includes: an airbag for restraining an occupant by expanding and deploying; and an inflator provided in a side wall part of a seat frame in the vehicle width direction extending in the vehicle traveling direction when a horizontal cross section of the vehicle seat is viewed from above, and that supplies expansion gas to the airbag. The airbag includes a main chamber that expands and deploys towards the front and a pre-push chamber that expands and deploys before the main chamber to the inside of the main chamber in the vehicle width direction. Furthermore, the pre-push chamber has a structure with an extension portion extending from the inflator towards the rear of the vehicle seat.