Patent ID: 6290272
Filing Date: 2001-09-18
Classification: B60R

Abstract:
An energy absorber for motor vehicle bumpers with a number of stiffening elements arranged between a bumper bracket and a bumper shell of a bumper, wherein the stiffening elements have freestanding front sides facing away from a rear mounting structure that is capable of being fastened to the bumper bracket, and whose centers are also laterally offset from one another in a longitudinal direction, characterized in that a lateral center-to-center distance corresponds to standard dimensions of a human leg, in that the stiffening elements deform in an event of collision with a first object a size of the human leg of standard dimensions with essentially unimpeded and mutually independent energy-absorbing deformation of side faces which face one another, and in that the stiffening elements engage one another at their side faces in a manner hindering lateral deformation with an abrupt increase in the stiffness of the energy absorber in the event of collision with a second object larger than the standard dimensions of the human leg, further characterized in that the stiffening elements have corrugated side faces, and in that the corrugation of the stiffening lamellae propagates in a direction of a depth of the energy absorber, forming predetermined bending lines.