EP2367999A1

EP2367999A1 - Safety device for controlling the opening of an automobile door

Info

Publication number: EP2367999A1
Application number: EP09768521A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Ahmed El Abidi
Original assignee: Valeo Securite Habitacle SAS
Current assignee: Minebea AccessSolutions France SAS
Priority date: 2008-12-19
Filing date: 2009-12-04
Publication date: 2011-09-28
Also published as: WO2010069787A1; CN102257233A; JP2012512974A; JP5746043B2; US8596402B2; FR2940341A1; US20110290577A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a safety device for controlling the opening of an automobile door (100). According to the invention, the device (130) includes means (131, 132, 133) for blocking said control in the event of a side impact. The invention can be used for automobile safety with respect to side impacts.

Description

SAFETY DEVICE FOR AUTOMOTIVE VEHICLE DOOR OPENING CONTROL

The present invention relates to a safety device for opening control of a motor vehicle door.

The invention finds a particularly advantageous application in the field of securing motor vehicles against side impacts.

In general, the doors are important safety components of motor vehicles because, on the one hand, they contribute to the rigidity of the entire cabin, and, on the other hand, they protect the occupants of vehicles against the risks of ejection in the event of an accident.

This is why the standards for side impact, in which doors are more heavily involved, are becoming more stringent and require that the doors of vehicles must remain closed during and after a side impact. However, after the shock, emergency personnel, such as firefighters, who respond to an accident that has given rise to a side impact, must be able to open the doors without difficulty in order to clear the persons inside the vehicle. vehicle.

In order to understand the difficulties involved in implementing these standards, it is worth recalling a few technical elements relating to the closing and opening of motor vehicle doors.

The closing of a door is achieved by the engagement of the bolt of the lock in a keeper located on a door jamb. When opened from outside the vehicle, the bolt is released from the strike by actuating a system known by the generic name of "external opening control". The system includes a handle that, when operated by traction by a user, drives a control lever for pulling on one end of a cable, which is connected at another end to the lock bolt. Thus, the action exerted on the handle is reflected, through the kinematic chain of the opening control outside, by the release of the bolt of the striker and thus by the opening of the door. When the user releases the handle, it is returned to the rest position by a return spring.

There is also inside the vehicles an opening system called "interior opening control" whose kinematic chain is the same type as that of the outer opening control, but independent of the latter.

In the absence of any safety device, it is understood that, during a side impact, the inertial force related to the mass of the handle can reach or exceed the pull force usually required to open the door. It must be remembered that a lateral shock is able to develop on the handle instantaneous accelerations of a few hundred times the acceleration of gravity. The intensity of the inertial forces generated can therefore be considerable, even with lightened handles. On the other hand, the stiffness of the return spring of the handle is of course very insufficient to oppose the opening force exerted by the inertia force applied to the handle.

In order to meet the safety standards imposed in the event of a side impact, various solutions are proposed to the problem posed by the inadvertent opening of the doors under the effect of the inertia applied to the handle.

A first solution consists of a counterweight device and return spring. The counterweight is mounted on an axis which is also connected to the handle, so as to produce on the axis, during a side impact, an inertial torque opposite to that of the inertial force applied to the handle. This safety device therefore acts by inertia compensation without however oppose the normal opening movement of the door because it is in this case slow movements with low acceleration. When a user pulls the handle to open the door, it simultaneously drives the counterweight of the safety device, which is then returned to its initial position by the return spring when the user releases the handle.

Generally, the counterweight is made of a dense metal such as zamack (registered trademark). This first solution has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive, but it also has many other disadvantages. In particular, the presence of the counterweight increases the size of the external opening control system in the thickness of the door and weighs the vehicle with non-functional masses. On the other hand, this known safety device does not work for very high accelerations due to the inertia of the counterweight. Security is not 100% guaranteed. Finally, it is a passive device that is triggered only in case of side impact. A second solution proposed in the state of the art is also an inertial solution, but this time operating by blocking the kinematic chain of the external opening control. This second known safety device consists of a mass of inertia arranged so as to cause, during a side impact, a member adapted to block for example the cable control lever, thus preventing the release of the bolt from the lock out of the strike. As for the previous known device, a return spring is present to bring the mass of inertia back to its rest position.

The advantage of this second device is to be more compact, less bulky and lighter than the first. Its disadvantages lie in the risk of rebound of the mass of inertia since its blocking position under the effect of strong accelerations. And, like the first device described above, it is also a passive system that does not guarantee 100% security. Also, an object of the invention is to provide a safety device for door opening control of a motor vehicle, which would ensure 100% safety against the opening of the doors in case of side impact.

This object is achieved, according to the invention, because said device comprises locking means of said command in the event of a lateral impact.

The locking means of the opening control can be activated both during the vehicle running phase and when stopped, which ensures that they are still in a side impact, regardless of the circumstances, driving or stopping the vehicle, and the intensity of the impact. Indeed, the safety device according to the invention is not an inertial device implemented only at the time of a side impact, but an active device at any time, so before a possible side impact occurs. It is therefore independent of acceleration and ensures 100% safety.

According to one embodiment of the invention, said locking means comprise a locking member cooperating with the opening control, and an actuator able, on the one hand, to activate said locking member in the locked position and, on the other hand, to deactivate said locking member of said locked position.

In this embodiment, it is the locking member that keeps the door. The function of the actuator is to bring the locking member into the locked position of the door, and also to disengage it from this position in order to allow the door to be opened under normal conditions of use of the vehicle, the absence of side impact.

Two examples of implementation of the blocking means are contemplated by the invention. According to a first example of implementation, said locking means are able to block a handle of said opening command. According to a second example of implementation, said locking means are able to lock a cable operating lever of said opening control. In a particular embodiment, said locking member comprises a pin capable of being introduced into a slot in the opening control.

The invention furthermore provides that said locking means are able to yield under an action exerted on the opening control after a lateral impact against said door. For example, said locking member is breakable and capable of being broken under said action exerted on the opening control after a lateral impact against said door. This property of the locking member has the advantage of allowing to open without real difficulty a damaged door following a side impact. Indeed, after such a shock, the locking member remains in the position where it keeps locked the opening control and is therefore opposed to the opening of the door by the emergency services. Nevertheless, because of the breakable character, for example of the locking member, the door can be opened easily by breaking said body with the means usually available to the emergency services. Of course, the resistance of the locking member must be calibrated so as to be sufficient not to break during the side impact, while remaining lower than the forces developed by extrication equipment for example.

According to an advantageous embodiment, said locking means are activated when closing said door.

In particular, said blocking means are activated by a sensor for detecting closing of the door of the vehicle. This arrangement makes it possible to activate the locking means at the closing of the door, both inside and outside the vehicle.

Alternatively, it is proposed by the invention that said locking means are activated by a starting action of the vehicle. In this variant, the locking means are activated when the driver of the vehicle is present in the passenger compartment.

It is also provided by the invention that said locking means are deactivated at the opening of said door.

In this case, it can be envisaged that said blocking means are deactivated by means of a switch coupled to an interior door opening control. This switch cuts for example the power supply of a mechanical or electromechanical actuator in order to bring back a locking member, such as a pin, in the unlocked position of an element of the external opening control, handle or lever of pull cable control.

But it can also be considered alternatively that said locking means are deactivated by mechanical coupling between an inner door opening control and said locking means. It is then necessary add to the driveline of the inner opening control a coupling element with the kinematic chain of the outer opening control.

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings, given by way of non-limiting examples will make it clear what the invention consists of and how it can be achieved.

Figure 1 is a block diagram of a motor vehicle door.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a safety device of the opening control of the door of FIG. 1.

In Figure 1 is shown schematically a door 100 of a motor vehicle.

The door 100 of Figure 1 comprises an external opening control 110, also called COE, for allowing a user to open the door 100 from outside the vehicle. Conventionally, the COE 110 comprises a handle 111 operable in a traction movement and further adapted to be returned to its rest position by means of a return spring when the tensile force ceases.

The handle 111 is mechanically connected to a control lever 112 whose function is to pull a cable 113 at the same time as the handle 111 is operated, in order to release the latch 114 from the lock of the door 100 of the striker 210. associated, arranged on an amount

200 of door.

In FIG. 1, it is possible to observe the presence of a safety device 130 for the external opening control 110 whose purpose is to obtain with a 100% guarantee that the door 100 remains closed in the event of a side impact against the door 100. In order to satisfy this requirement, the safety device 130 of FIG. 1 comprises active locking means of the COE 110, that is to say means capable of keeping the door 100 closed as soon as the user has entered his vehicle and not under the effect of a side impact, as for the known safety devices that have been described above. An exemplary embodiment of such locking means 130 is given in FIG.

In this example, the locking means act directly on the handle 111 of the COE 110. More specifically, a locking member, represented here by a pin 131, can be brought into a locked position in a slot 132 formed in the mechanism of the It is in this locking position of the handle 111 that the pin 131 is located as soon as the safety device is activated. On the other hand, when the vehicle is stationary for example, the pin 131 must be able to be disengaged from its blocking position in order to allow the normal opening of the door 100.

As shown in FIG. 2, the activation of the locking member 131 in its locked position as well as its deactivation can be effected by means of, for example, a mechanical or electromechanical actuator 133 comprising an electromagnet, not shown, powered. by the battery of the vehicle and a return means 134, such as an elastic means (spring or elastically deformable part). Note that the electromechanical actuator can also be a geared motor.

In FIG. 1, it can be seen that the actuator 133 is activated when the door 100 is closed by a sensor 220 for closing the door.

Of course, other means for activating the locking means on closing the door 100 may be envisaged, such as a starting action of the vehicle or by an additional switch inside the passenger compartment. Conversely, the locking means must be deactivated when the door 100 is opened.

Thus, it can be envisaged that an internal opening control 120, or COI, is coupled to a switch, not shown, disposed on the power supply of the electromechanical actuator 133, so as to cut off the current in the coil. induction and return the pin 131 in its unlocked position under the action of the spring 134 of the actuator 133.

Alternatively, in a purely mechanical version of the locking means, the locking member, such as the pin 131, can be deactivated and brought into the unlocked position by mechanical coupling between the COI 120 and the pin 131.

The deactivation or activation of the blocking means can also be carried out using existing sensors or switches, in particular the locking of the door, the insertion of the key, etc.

It should be pointed out that the invention is not limited to the action of the locking means on the handle 111, but that it also extends to blocking other elements of the COE 110, such as the lever 112 of control of the cable 113, the pin 131 can serve equally well to block the movement of the lever 112 and thus prevent the opening of the door 100 from the entrance of the user inside his vehicle or during the driving of the vehicle, for example.

In order to allow the opening of the door 100 by the rescue personnel from outside the vehicle following an accident involving a side impact, it is advantageous for the locking pin 131, for example, to be broken. without difficulty by action on the COE 110. For this, the pin 131 can be scored under a predefined effort, ie able to be broken using the usual means available to the emergency services for remove people from inside the damaged vehicles. But it is also necessary that the pin 131 is capable of transmitting the operating forces. Its mechanical resistance must therefore be adjusted between a lower threshold equal to the inertial force applied to the handle in the event of a side impact and an upper threshold equal to the force exerted by the emergency equipment to open the damaged doors. Finally, it should be noted that the safety device that has just been described can be installed on all vehicle doors.

Claims

1. Safety device for control (110) for opening a door (100) of a motor vehicle, characterized in that said device (130) comprises means (131, 132, 133) for blocking said command in case of lateral impact.

2. Device according to claim 1, wherein said locking means comprise a locking member (131) cooperating with the control (110) opening, and an actuator (133) adapted, on the one hand, to activate said organ (131) locking in the locked position and, secondly, to disable said member (131) for blocking said locked position.

3. Device according to one of claims 1 or 2, wherein said locking means are adapted to lock a handle (111) of said control (110) opening.

4. Device according to one of claims 1 or 2, wherein said locking means are adapted to block a lever (112) cable operation (113) of said control (110) opening.

5. Device according to any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein said locking member comprises a pin (131) adapted to be introduced into a slot (132) formed in the control (110) opening.

6. Device according to any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein said actuator is a mechanical or electromechanical actuator (133).

7. Device according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein said means (131) for blocking are able to yield under action exerted on the opening control (110) after a side impact against said door (100).

8. Device according to claims 2 and 7, wherein said member (131) for locking is breakable and capable of being broken under said action exerted on the control (110) opening after a side impact against said door (100).

9. Device according to any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein said means (133) for locking are activated at the closing of said door

(100).

10. Device according to claim 9, wherein said means (133) for locking are activated by a sensor (220) for closing the door (100) of the vehicle.

11. Device according to claim 9, wherein said locking means are activated by a starting action of the vehicle.

12. Device according to any one of claims 1 to 1 1, wherein said means (131, 133) blocking are disabled at the opening of said door (100).

13. Device according to claim 12, wherein said means (133) blocking are disabled by means of a switch coupled to a command

(120) interior door opening (100).

14. Device according to claim 12, wherein said means (131) for locking are deactivated by mechanical coupling between a control (120) of interior door opening (100) and said means (132) blocking.