Patent Application
20090115178
The present invention relates to a technical field of a seat belt apparatus attached to a motor vehicle seat for restraining and protecting an occupant in emergency situations, and more specifically to a technical field of a tongue plate stopper attached to seat belt webbing of a seat belt apparatus for preventing a tongue plate from dropping off at a time of nonuse of a seat belt.
For example, a seat belt apparatus attached to a motor vehicle seat of an automobile or the like is configured to protect an occupant by means of restraining the occupant that tends to be moved by inertia, by means of a seat belt in emergency situations when large motor vehicle deceleration occurs, such as a motor vehicle collision, or the like. In such a seat belt apparatus, a tongue plate stopper attached to seat belt webbing, for preventing a tongue plate from dropping off at a time of nonuse of the seat belt is provided.
As an example of a tongue plate stopper of a hitherto known seat belt, a tongue plate stopper provided with a male member where one protruding portion that penetrates seat belt webbing for use in restraining the occupant in a wall thickness direction is provided, and a female member where a reception hole to which the protruding portion penetrated from the webbing is fitted into is provided is known (refer to, for example, the patent document 1).
In the tongue plate stopper disclosed in the patent document 1, since the webbing is sandwiched between both the female and male members and a moving amount of a tongue plate is thereby limited, it becomes possible to attach the tongue plate stopper at an appropriate position in a longitudinal direction of the webbing corresponding to a change of a body type of the occupant and a driving posture thereof, and an appropriate webbing-wearing condition can be applied to the occupant.
On the other hand, as another example of the tongue plate stopper of the hitherto known seat belt, a tongue plate stopper including a first board element where a pin penetrating webbing is protruded at a center of a face-of-board at a webbing side, and a second board element having a fitting portion where the pin is fitted into the center of the face-of-board at the webbing side is provided, in which a plurality of protrusions are protruded at predetermined intervals in a peripheral direction on the face-of-board at the webbing side of the board element of one side, and grooves corresponding to the protrusions are provided in a peripheral direction on the face-of-board at the webbing side of the board element of the other side, and which a tip end of the protrusion is engageable with the groove, is known (for example, refer to the patent document 2).
In the tongue plate stopper disclosed in the patent document 2, since a plurality of protrusions are disposed at predetermined intervals, and the tip end of the protrusion is engaged into the groove, attaching strength of the tongue plate stopper to the webbing can be configured to be extremely high.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Registration Application Publication No. 56-23147
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 5-81242
However, in the tongue plate stoppers disclosed in the patent document 1 and the patent document 2, a warp and a weft are expanded when the protruding portion of the tongue plate stopper penetrates the seat belt webbing, as shown in
The present invention is made in light of the above-described circumstances, and an object is to provide a tongue plate stopper for use in a seat belt and a seat belt apparatus using the same capable of eliminating a hollow and the corrugating phenomenon generated by mounting the hitherto known tongue plate stopper.
To solve the above-described problems, a tongue plate stopper for use in a seat belt according to claim 1 with respect to the present invention is characterized in that a tongue plate stopper for preventing a tongue plate from dropping off up to a bottom at a time of nonuse of the seat belt includes a first member including a pin penetrating a seat belt webbing, and a second member including a hole through which the pin penetrated through the seat belt webbing is penetrated, in which a plurality of the pins are penetrated through a plurality of the holes being respectively corresponding thereto, and in which the seat belt webbing is sandwiched by the first member and the second member from both sides thereof.
Further, the tongue plate stopper for use in the seat belt according to claim 2 with respect to the present invention is characterized in that a cross-section of the pin is formed to be a round shape.
Furthermore, the tongue plate stopper for use in the seat belt according to claim 3 with respect to the present invention is characterized in that a cross-section of the pin is formed to be an ellipse.
Moreover, the tongue plate stopper for use in the seat belt according to claim 4 with respect to the present invention is characterized in that the pin includes a pin having a round shaped cross-section at an inside in a width direction of the seat belt webbing, and a pin having an elliptically shaped cross-section at an outside.
Further, the tongue plate stopper for use in the seat belt according to claim 5 with respect to the present invention is characterized in that the pin includes a pin having a diameter smaller than a diameter of a cross-section of an inside pin, at the outside in the width direction of the seat belt webbing.
Further, a seat belt apparatus according to claim 6 with respect to the present invention is characterized in that in a seat belt apparatus including at least a seat belt for restraining an occupant in emergency, a seat belt retractor for retracting the seat belt, a guide anchor for use in the seat belt, guiding the seat belt pulled out from the seat belt retractor to a shoulder of the occupant, a tongue plate slidably supported by the seat belt being guided from the guide anchor for use in the seat belt, a buckle in which the tongue plate is disengageably inserted and engaged, and a tongue plate stopper for preventing the tongue plate from dropping off up to a bottom at a time of nonuse of the seat belt, the tongue plate stopper for use in the seat belt is the tongue plate stopper for use in seat belt according to any one of claims 1 through 5.
According to a tongue plate stopper for use in a seat belt with respect to the present invention constructed as described above, since a first member having a pin penetrating a seat belt webbing, and a second member having a hole through which the pin penetrated through the aforementioned seat belt webbing is penetrated are provided, and a plurality of the aforementioned pins are penetrated through a plurality of the aforementioned holes respectively corresponding thereto, and the aforementioned seat belt webbing is sandwiched by the aforementioned first member and the aforementioned second member from both sides thereof, the seat belt webbing is brought to a state to be entirely constricted in a longitudinal direction, there is no possibility that a corrugating phenomenon occurs. Further, as for a weft, although the weft is brought to a state to have a constricted length by each pin, similarly to a case of a warp, a hollow is suppressed not to become large. This is because the constriction in a width direction of the aforementioned weft gets balanced out in the vicinity of an end portion in a width direction of the seat belt webbing by the warp being expanded in a width direction by the pin.
Further, since the aforementioned plurality of pins includes a pin having a small diameter at an outside, and a deformation of the warp and the weft at the outside is brought to be small, the number and the disposition can more minutely be set. Therefore, the hollow is particularly suppressed not to become large, and there is no possibility that a corrugating phenomenon occurs.
Hereinbelow, a best mode for carrying out the present invention will be explained referring to the drawings.
As shown in
In
In
At this moment, it is preferable to set a distance from the center of the first center portion 11 of the first member 10 to each of centers of the second pins 15 to be identical of a distance from a center of the second center portion 21 of the second member 20 to each of the centers of the second holes 25. Further, it is preferable to set a distance from a center of the first center portion 11 of the first member 10 to a center of a groove of the peripheral groove portion 13 to be identical of a distance from a center of the second center portion 21 of the second member 20 to a center of the protrusion 23.
Further, it is preferable to set a diameter of the first pin 12 of the first member 11 to be identical of an inner diameter of a portion of the first hole 22 of the second member 20 having the least diameter, and to set a diameter of the second pin 15 of the first member 11 to be identical of an inner diameter of a portion of the second hole 25 of the second member 20 having the least diameter. In addition, it is preferable to form the peripheral groove portion 13 of the first member 11 to have a size for a tip end of the protrusion 23 of the second member to be inserted.
Incidentally, the first center portion 11, the peripheral groove portion 13, and the first peripheral edge portion 14, and the second center portion 21, the protrusion 23, and the second peripheral edge portion 24 are not always necessary to be provided.
In this case, the warp 31 and the weft 32 of the seat belt webbing 30 used at a uniform length are expanded by each of the pins, 12 and 15, and each of the warp 31 and the weft 32 around each of the pins, 12 and 15, is brought to a state to have a constricted length in relation to the warp 31 and the weft 32 in an ordinary state, by an extent of that each of the warp 31 and the weft 32 around each of the pins, 12 and 15, wraps around each of the pins, 12 and 15. As for the warp 31, because the warp 31 is brought to the state to have the constricted length by each of the pins, 12 and 15, the seat belt webbing 30 is brought to the state to be entirely constricted in a longitudinal direction, there is no possibility that a corrugating phenomenon occurs. Further, as for the weft 32, although the weft 32 is brought to a state to have a constricted length by each of the pins, 12 and 15, similar to a case of the warp 31, a hollow is suppressed not to become large. This is because the constriction in a width direction of the aforementioned weft 32 gets balanced out in the vicinity of an end portion in a width direction of the seat belt webbing 30, by the warp 31 being expanded by the second pin 15 in a width direction.
Incidentally, a position of the seat belt webbing 30, through which each pin penetrates, is preferable to be configured such that a distance from an end portion in a width direction of a belt to a center of the outside second pin 15 is set to be from about 3 to about 10 mm, when a belt width is defined as 47 mm. Specifically, it is more preferable to set a distance from an end portion in a width direction of the seat belt webbing 30 to the center of the outside second pin 15 to be 8.5 mm, and a distance between each of the centers of the second pins 15 at outsides to be 30 mm. Further, although the drawing is made in a manner such that a space is formed between each of the pins, 12 and 15, and the warp 31 and the weft 32 for ease of understanding, no space is formed in practice, or little space is formed even if some space is formed.
Further, a tip end of the protrusion 23 of the second member 20 is pressed into the peripheral groove portion 13 of the first member 10, and the tip end of the protrusion 23 enters a gap between the warp 31 and the weft 32 of the seat belt webbing 30 resulting in entering the peripheral groove portion 13. Furthermore, in a case that the gap between the warp 31 and the weft 32 of the seat belt webbing 30 is relatively large, the tip end of the protrusion 23 passes through the gap between the warp 31 and the weft 32, and enters the peripheral groove portion 13. Accordingly, weight of the tongue plate 7 applied to the tongue plate stoppers, 10 and 20, is dispersed in a wide area of the first member 10 and the second member 20. As a result, a load becomes not to be concentrated to only the weft 32 passing through downside of each of the pins, 12 and 15, and attaching strength becomes strong.
By means of forming a structure described above, a plurality of pins, 12 and 15 are penetrated from one side of the seat belt webbing 30, and the aforementioned pins, 12 and 15, are penetrated into a plurality of respectively corresponding holes, 22 and 25, at the other side of the aforementioned seat belt webbing 30. Thus, the seat belt webbing 30 is sandwiched.
Next,
In this case, similar to the case of three pins shown in
Furthermore, the position where each pin penetrates through the seat belt webbing 30 is preferable to be configured such that the distance from the end portion in the width direction of the belt to the center of the second pin 15 at an outermost side is set to be from about 3 to about 10 mm, when the belt width is defined as 47 mm, similar to the case of the three pins shown in
Incidentally, although one first pin 12 is provided at the center, it is not always necessary to provide the first pin 12 at the center, and as an embodiment which is not shown, a total of the number of the pins, 12 and 15, may be configured to be an even number by means of providing two first pins 12, and a plurality of second pins 15 at an outside thereof. At this moment, it is more preferable to configure intervals between each of the pins, 12 and 15, to be identical. In addition, in this case, the position where each pin penetrates through the seat belt webbing 30 is preferable to be configured such that the distance from the end portion in the width direction of the belt to the center of the second pin 15 at an outermost side is set to be from about 3 to about 10 mm, when the belt width is defined as 47 mm. Specifically, it is more preferable to set the distance from the end portion of the seat belt webbing 30 to the center of the second pin 15 at the outermost side to be 8.5 mm, and the distance between each of the centers of the second pins 15 at the outermost side of both sides to be 30 mm.
Further, as another embodiment which is not shown, the tongue plate stoppers, 10 and 20, may be constructed by penetrating a plurality of the aforementioned pins, 12 and 15, through a plurality of the aforementioned, holes, 22 and 25, corresponding thereto by means of respectively lining a plurality of the first members 10 provided with at least one pin 12 and one pin 15, and a plurality of the second members 20 provided with at least one hole 22 and one hole 25. At this moment, absence of the second pin 15 and the second hole 25 may be allowed. Further, it is more preferable to provide a pin 12 having a small diameter at an outside in the width direction of the seat belt webbing 30.
Furthermore, even in the case of the aforementioned embodiment which is not shown, the first pine 12, the second pin 15, the first hole 22, and the second hole 25 may be constructed in a combination described in the embodiment and that of various sizes and shapes other than described.
The hollow of the seat belt webbing 30 is suppressed not to become large, and no possibility for a corrugating phenomenon to occur remains by means of applying the tongue plate stoppers, 10 and 20 of the present embodiment, penetrating a plurality of pins, 12 and 15, through the seat belt webbing 30 from one side thereof, penetrating the aforementioned pins, 12 and 15, through a plurality of the holes, 22 and 25, at the other side of the aforementioned seat belt webbing 30, and sandwiching the seat belt webbing 30, as described above.
A tongue plate stopper for use in a seat belt according to the present invention and a seat belt apparatus provided with the same can preferably be utilized to a seat belt apparatus attached to a motor vehicle for restraining and protecting an occupant by means of a seat belt in emergency.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-333626 | Nov 2005 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2006/321255 | 10/25/2006 | WO | 00 | 12/7/2007 |
