Patent Application
20190248190
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. 37 CFR 1.71(d).
The following includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention(s). It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art, or material, to the presently described or claimed inventions, or that any publication or document that is specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
The present invention relates generally to the field of automobile tire accessories art and more specifically relates to a tire airbag apparatus.
When a vehicle tire is damaged and rapidly deflates due to an unexpected puncture or the like, the vehicle is unable to continue and the tire must be repaired or replaced before driving can continue. This is both inconvenient and dangerous as tire failures often result in the loss of vehicle control, serious injuries and fatalities.
In the past various solutions have been proposed to allow at least limited continued driving of a vehicle after a tire loses inflation. U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,848 to Van der Burg; U.S. Pat. No. 8,327,897 to Firestone; U.S. Pat. No. 2,554,815 to Church; U.S. Pat. No. 7,891,393 to Czarno; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,995 to Schultz present various solutions.
However, these solutions rely upon costly and complicated structures such as inflatable rim shoulders which continue to function after a flat has occurred so that the wheels will remain operative; an inflation system that relies upon a sealing and inflating compound to seal a tear or rupture, a sensor that detects the presence of a rupture in a tire and initiates a sealant from a cartridge to inflate the tire.
Thus there is a need for a means of rapidly inflating a tire upon puncture and, yet would operate reliably, be easy to install, and capable of being manufactured at a modest expense.
The present invention provides a novel tire airbag apparatus. The general purpose of the present invention, which will be described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide an inner tube with a tire damage sensor member that is configured to activate an inflator member when there is a blowout of the tire or a sudden loss in tire pressure. When a loss in pressure is detected by the sensor, the inner tube is rapidly activated by the inflator member allowing the motorist to continue in safety.
The tire airbag apparatus of the present invention is attached to the rim of a tire and includes a tire damage sensor member which can detect a loss in pressure of the tire. When a loss in pressure is detected by the tire damage sensor member a signal is sent to an inflator member whereby a circumferential inner tube rapidly inflates thereby allowing a motorist to continue safely on their way for a given distance until the tire can be replaced or repaired.
The tire airbag apparatus is attached to the rim of a wheel and is available for various sized wheels. The airbag apparatus also includes a tire sealant such that the inner tube will not explode as it expands against a nail or similar article. The inner tube would ideally hold for 24 hours allowing the motorist to have the tire repaired or replaced.
The present invention holds significant improvements and serves as a tire airbag. For purposes of summarizing the invention, certain aspects, advantages, and novel features of the invention have been described herein. It is to be understood that not necessarily all such advantages may be achieved in accordance with any one particular embodiment of the invention. Thus, the invention may be embodied or carried out in a manner that achieves or optimizes one advantage or group of advantages as taught herein without necessarily achieving other advantages as may be taught or suggested herein. The features of the invention which are believed to be novel are particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification. These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings and detailed description.
The figures which accompany the written portion of this specification illustrate embodiments of use for the present invention, a tire airbag apparatus, constructed and operative according to the teachings of the present invention.
The various embodiments of the present invention will hereinafter be described in conjunction with the appended drawings, wherein like designations denote like elements.
Referring to the drawings by numerals of reference there is shown in
The circumferential inner tube 2 (
The tire airbag apparatus 1 also includes a tire damage sensor member 13. The tire damage sensor member 13 is adapted to be removably attached to an inner surface 11 of one of the inboard flange 8 or outboard flange 9 of the rim member 4. The damage sensor member 13 is adapted to detect damage to the tire member 12 that may result in the loss of air pressure within the tire member 12. The tire damage sensor 13 is configured to send an electronic signal to an inflator member 15 whenever damage is detected. The inflator member 15 is shown schematically in a break-away section in
Exemplary tire damage sensors may include a PSI sensor arranged to detect pressure in a pressurized interior space of the tire member 12 and configured to send the electronic signal to actuate the inflator member 15 when the air pressure drops below a certain predetermined pressure level. Alternately, the electronic signal may be manually triggered by a switch suitably provided within the vehicle and readily accessible to the motorist.
The inflator member 15 is attached to the circumferential inner tube 2 and is electronically connected to the tire damage sensor 13. The inflator member 15 is configured to inflate the circumferential inner tube 2 when the electronic signal is received from the tire damage sensor member 13 indicating that the tire member 12 has been damaged.
The inflator member 15 may be one of several suitable sources of providing pressurized gas to enable the inflation of the circumferential inner tube 2. One source may be that of mixing and reacting chemicals stored in a container to form a pressurized gas. The container may have chemicals such as sodium azide with potassium nitrate to produce nitrogen gas which upon receipt of the electronic signal from the tire damage sensor member 13 are mixed and react to form blasts of gas. Furthermore, the circumferential inner tube 2 may have a tire sealant in it so that if there is a puncture from a nail present in the tire member 12, the circumferential inner tube 2 won't rupture or explode when it expands there against.
The tire airbag apparatus 1 further includes a circumferential outer covering 16 (
The circumferential outer covering 16 includes a scoring 17 (
The circumferential outer covering 16 is formed of a flexible material and includes two opposite ends 20a, 20b (
The two opposite ends 20a,b include mating releasable connector members 21a,b adapted to releasably connect the two opposite ends 20a,b. One of the opposite ends 20a includes one releasable connector member 21a (
As set forth above, the present invention provides for an improved vehicle tire apparatus 25 (
The tire member 12 includes an inner wall surface 12A and an outer wall surface 12B (
The improved vehicle tire apparatus 25 has the circumferential outer covering 16 (
Upon reading this specification, it should be appreciated that, under appropriate circumstances, considering such issues as design preference, user preferences, marketing preferences, cost, structural requirements, available materials, technological advances, etc., other kit contents or arrangements such as, for example, including more or less components, customized parts, different color combinations, parts may be sold separately, etc., may be sufficient.
The embodiments of the invention described herein are exemplary and numerous modifications, variations and rearrangements can be readily envisioned to achieve substantially equivalent results, all of which are intended to be embraced within the spirit and scope of the invention. Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and especially the scientist, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application.
