Patent ID: 7434837
Filing Date: 2008-10-14
Classification: B60R

Abstract:
1. A knee-protecting airbag device comprising an airbag, the airbag, when fed with inflation gas, protruding rearward from a housing and deployable upward for protecting occupant's knees, wherein: the airbag comprises: wherein: the downstream part of the airbag comprises a shin-protecting area for protecting occupant's shins; and in the course of airbag inflation, internal pressure of the shin-protecting area peaks 5 to 15 ms later than a peak time of internal pressure of the upstream part, wherein: the airbag comprises more than one tether located within the airbag body and arranged in a row in vertical direction, each of the tethers joining the occupant side wall and the vehicle body side wall for regulating thickness of the airbag body as completely inflated, and each of the tethers extending generally along transverse direction of the airbag body; one of the tethers is the regulating tether, and one of the rest of the tethers constitutes a partitioning tether for partitioning the shin-protecting area for protecting shins and a knee-protecting area for protecting knees, in the downstream part; and a sectional area of flow path of inflation gas flowing toward the shin-protecting area from the upstream part in the regulating tether is set smaller than a sectional area of flow path of inflation gas flowing upward in each of locations of the tethers except the regulating tether; wherein: each of the regulating tether and the partitioning tether is joined to all over inner circumference of the airbag body, and comprises a gas communication hole allowing the inflation gas to pass therethrough; wherein: each of the regulating tether and the partitioning tether comprises more than one gas communication hole disposed side by side along transverse direction; and the gas communication holes of the regulating tether and the gas communication holes of the partitioning tether are arranged in such a manner as dislocated from one another in transverse direction, as viewed from above.