Abstract:
A belt storage arrangement for a shoulder belt mounted on the upper rear corner of the door and a lap belt mounted on the lower rear corner of the door. A storage buckle is mounted on the upper rear corner of the door adjacent the shoulder belt anchorage and is adapted to receive a latch plate carried by the inboard ends of the lap and shoulder belt so that the lap and shoulder belt hang generally vertical along the rear edge of the door. A slip ring slidably encircles the lap and shoulder belts and falls vertically along the vertically hanging lap and shoulder belts to couple the belts in a neatly stored position overlying one another. When the latch plate is engaged with a buckle conventionally mounted inboard the seat, the lap and shoulder belts are established in their occupant restraining positions and the slip ring slides along the belts to assume a position adjacent the latch plate inboard the occupant to enable the positioning of the lap and shoulder belts along their separate paths across the seated occupant.
Abstract:
A passive three-point lap and shoulder belt system includes a continuous loop of belt which is slidably mounted on the door adjacent the occupant's shoulder by a slide loop or pulley and has both ends mounted on the body inboard the occupant seat to define a double strand diagonal shoulder belt. A retractor provides the mounting of one of the shoulder belt ends to the vehicle body so that the shoulder belt is extended from the retractor and through the slide loop upon opening movement of the door and is retracted upon closing movement of the door. The lap belt has one end attached to the vehicle door generally adjacent the hip of the occupant and the other end attached on the shoulder belt strand mounted by the retractor and at a point thereon which travels from inboard the occupant when the door is closed to a position intermediate the retractor and the door mounted slide loop upon opening movement of the door. Each increment of door opening movement causes the shoulder belt to be unwound from the retractor by a distance equal to twice the increase in distance between the retractor and the door mounted slide loop so that the lap belt inboard end is lifted upwardly and moved laterally outwardly of the occupant to facilitate occupant ingress and egress.
Abstract:
A mechanically resonant ground motion sensor having a frequency response which is "tuned" to discriminate between applied vibrational forces which are destructive and those which are not. The basic operating principle of the sensor is that of an oscillating mass whose dynamic response to applied forces takes the form of viscously damped harmonic motion. The disclosed embodiments include a horizontal ground motion detector based on the movement of a pendulum in a viscous fluid and a vertical ground motion detector utilizing a vertically sprung dashpot cylinder moving through a viscous fluid. The detector is tuned to trigger a tripping mechanism in response to accelerations above a threshold value and within the critical range of destructive frequencies. Tuning is accomplished through appropriate selection of the various design parameters including the active surface area upon which the viscous force acts, the fluid gap between moving and stationary surfaces, the weight of the moving element and the fluid viscosity. The sensor may be used to disable or deactivate systems such as elevators or gas lines which may become life endangering during a destructive earthquake.