An inflatable belt for use in a seat belt apparatus. The belt provides an increased inflation length without having to pass an inflatable bag through a belt guide. A seat belt apparatus may include the air belt which may include a webbing of which at least a part that comes into contact with an occupant is formed as a bag-like portion and the remaining part is formed as a single-band portion. The apparatus has a bag stored in the bag-like portion of the webbing in such a manner that the bag is folded along both the longitudinal direction thereof and the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction thereof. The air belt includes cover that covers the webbing. When a gas is injected into the bag the bag inflates to expand the webbing and to provide EA effect and occupant protection.
An air belt device includes a first cover member and a second cover member connected to each other defining an interior surface having an interior cavity. An inflatable member is at least partially disposed within the interior cavity. The inflatable member is folded with sewn edge portions folded inward.
There is provided a seat belt device for a vehicle, comprising bag portions and provided at seat belts and for protecting an occupant, a blower device to repeatedly supply the inflation air to the bag portions, air supply passages and connecting the bag portions with the blower device, and an air supply control device to supply the inflation air from the blower device to the bag portions so as to inflate the bag portions and discharge the supplied air from the bag portions so as to return the bag portions to deflated initial states. Accordingly, the occupant can be restrained to the properly large extent, thereby with the properly dispersed restraint force, and the inflation operation of the bag portion can be reused at need.
A seatbelt airbag is formed of a flexible fabric seat belt tube the first end of which is attached to the floor of the vehicle and the second end of which is wound over a conventional seatbelt retractor. In the uninflated condition, the fabric tube forms a flat belt that passes in a conventional manner through a slotted eyelet in a tongue member that is engaged in a conventional floor-mounted seatbelt buckle to form a conventional 3-point restraint having a lap portion and a torso portion. An inflatable airbag member is disposed within the flexible fabric tube extending from the fixed end of the fabric tube to a location past the tongue fitting into the torso portion of the seatbelt. The airbag member is encased for part of its length within a reinforcing sleeve that extends part way into the torso section. In operation, as the airbag is pressurized, in the area surrounded by the reinforcing sleeve, the inflatable airbag member expands only to the size of the reinforcing sleeve to form a gas channel, but does not rupture the reinforcing sleeve or the surrounding seatbelt tube. The portion of the inflatable airbag that extends beyond the open end of the reinforcing tube, however, ruptures the seatbelt tube and expands to its full diameter.
