Wearable Airbag Device with Double-Wall Protecting Portions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing wearable airbag devices for hip protection fail to adequately cover the hip area due to the airbag floating away from the pelvis during deployment, as they are designed to deploy downward from a waist wrap configuration, which does not effectively align with the hip's anatomy.
Innovation Solution
A wearable airbag device with a flexible airbag that wraps around the pelvis, featuring a mounting portion and extending protecting portions that include a double-wall or protruding inflatable structure to prevent expansion and ensure coverage of the trochanters, enhancing rigidity and maintaining proximity to the body part during deployment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If the airbag is wrapped around the pelvis and deployed downward to cover the hip, then the airbag can be positioned on the narrower pelvis, but the airbag flares out and floats away from the hip at the bottom, failing to cover the hip adequately
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a flexible airbag made of sheet material that can be wrapped around the pelvis. The airbag includes protecting portions that extend downward to cover the hip area. By using flexible material with appropriate rigidity control, the airbag maintains close proximity to the body while still providing adequate coverage area.
Solution Approach 2:
The airbag is divided into distinct functional portions: a mounting portion wrapped around the pelvis and protecting portions extending downward to cover the hip. This segmentation allows the mounting portion to remain stable on the narrower pelvis while the protecting portions maintain proper shape and proximity to the hip area, preventing flaring out.
2Reliability
If the airbag is deployed downward from the waist wrap configuration, then the airbag can be positioned to cover the hip area, but the airbag floats away from the pelvis and fails to provide adequate protection
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible airbag material allows the protecting portions to conform closely to the hip area while maintaining structural integrity. The material properties enable the airbag to stay in close proximity to the body during deployment, ensuring reliable protection and adequate contact area simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The airbag is pre-configured with protecting portions that extend downward from the mounting portion in a specific geometry. This preliminary shaping ensures that upon deployment, the protecting portions automatically maintain close proximity to the hip area, preventing floating and ensuring reliable protection from the start.
3Area of stationary object
If the airbag protecting portions extend downward to cover the trochanters, then the coverage area is increased, but the protecting portions expand and float away from the targeted body part at the lower end
Solution Approach 1:
The protecting portions are made of flexible sheet material with controlled rigidity properties. This allows the material to extend downward to cover the trochanters and maintain adequate coverage area, while simultaneously resisting excessive expansion and floating at the lower end, thus maintaining shape stability.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the airbag have different structural properties optimized for their specific functions. The protecting portions have local quality characteristics that provide sufficient flexibility for coverage while maintaining shape stability, preventing floating at the lower end where it is most critical.
Data Source
AI summary
A wearable airbag device for protecting the hip of a wearer includes an airbag that is formed of a sheet material having flexibility and is adapted to be put on a circumference of the pelvis of the wearer. The airbag is inflatable with an inflation gas. The airbag includes: a mounting portion that is adapted to be disposed at a region to be wrapped around the pelvis at airbag deployment; two protecting portions each of which is configured to extend downward from the mounting portion and cover an outer side of a targeted body part of the wearer at airbag deployment, the targeted body part being left and right trochanters of femurs; and a means for suppressing each of the protecting portions from expanding and floating away from the targeted body part at the lower end at deployment of the protecting portion.