An airbag apparatus capable of protecting an occupant by restraining movement of the occupant in an obliquely forward direction and towards a far side during a collision. A far side airbag apparatus (102), which is an airbag apparatus, deploys between a driver seat (106) and a front passenger seat (108) arranged side by side in a vehicle width direction of a vehicle cabin (100). The apparatus (102) includes a cushion (120) which is embedded in a floor of the vehicle cabin (100) and reaches a height at least equal to that of a pelvis region (160) of an occupant (156) seated in either one of the driver seat (106) and the front passenger seat (108) during inflation and deployment.

Fabrics for inflatable airbags including one or more aperture sections are disclosed. The aperture sections can be formed in woven fabric panels of the inflatable airbags. Methods of weaving fabric panels including aperture sections for inflatable airbags are also disclosed. The aperture sections may define vents, or the aperture sections may receive a portion of an inflator, a lead wire, and/or a mounting hardware component.

Provided is an air-bag integrally formed by hollow weaving and including a control seam for restricting expansion. The control seam is extended from the base fabric on one surface of an expansion portion of the air-bag to the base fabric on another surface, and the base fabrics are joined. The control seam extending from the base fabric on the one surface to the base fabric on the other surface, and the control seam extending symmetrically from the base fabric on the other surface to the base fabric on the one surface constitute a pair of control seams One or more pairs of the restriction yarns are arranged in a block shape, forming a restriction yarn block. Adjacent restriction yarn blocks are disposed in a parallelly staggered manner with respect to the direction in which the restriction yarns extend.

A knee airbag includes a front panel, a rear panel coupled to the front panel to define an inflation chamber, and an intermediate panel between the front panel and the rear panel and within the inflation chamber. The intermediate panel is connected to the front panel and the rear panel at various locations between a proximal end and a distal end of the intermediate panel to control an inflated configuration of the knee airbag. The knee airbag has a two-layer construction only including the front panel and the rear panel in a depth direction, a three-layer construction including the front panel, the rear panel, and the intermediate panel in the depth direction, and a transition construction including the front panel, the rear panel, and an air permeable portion in the depth direction. The knee airbag includes the two-layer construction in at least first and second two-layer areas that extend at least substantially along first and second lateral sides of the knee airbag. The knee airbag includes the three-layer construction in a laterally central area between the first and second lateral sides.

This disclosure relates to one-piece woven airbags coated with a cured product of hydrosilylation curable silicone rubber coating compositions and to a process for coating the one-piece woven airbags with the hydrosilylation curable silicone rubber coating compositions. The resulting one-piece woven airbags coated with a cured product of the hydrosilylation curable silicone rubber coating compositions are of a reduced mean dry coat weight while maintaining the properties of previous one-piece woven airbags coated with standard, thicker coatings.

A hollow weave fabric for an air bag in which the periphery of a double-layer hollow weave portion is formed with a seam zone, wherein the warp yarn and the weft yarn forming the base fabric are each a poly(hexamethylene adipamide) fiber having a total size of 150 to 500 dtex, the double-layer hollow weave portion has a fabric weight of 120 to 350 g/m.sup.2 on one side, and the fabric shows a logarithmic decrement of 0.01 to 0.10.

A method for manufacturing a one-piece woven air bag includes weaving yarns into a one-piece woven fabric air bag structure having single layer portions and two layer portions in which an inflatable volume is defined between the two layer portions and in which the single layer portions are non-inflatable portions that help define the shape and configuration of the inflatable volume. The step of weaving yarns is performed using a water-jet loom.

A one-piece woven pressure-responsive air outlet, for use as a vent, for application to airbag discharge openings, includes a lower fabric layer, a middle fabric layer and an upper fabric layer. The lower fabric layer includes warp and weft threads and an inflow region in which the warp and weft threads float. The middle fabric layer includes warp and weft threads and a flow-through region in which the warp and weft threads float. The lower and middle fabric layers include a first chamber and a second chamber downstream of the first chamber in a flow direction. At least one of the chambers is sealed with a thread breakage zone, in which between the fabric layers, selected (warp) threads of one fabric layer are merely tacked to selected (weft) threads of the other fabric layer and are capable of breaking or rupturing at a predefined internal pressure in the chamber.

Airbags including tethered inflatable chambers are disclosed. The tethered inflatable chambers can include internal tethers that are configured to break when an internal pressure of a tethered inflatable chamber reaches a predetermined value. Methods of forming an airbag fabric including internal tethers are also disclosed.

An air-bag for a motor vehicle is formed from first and second superposed layers of fabric, each woven from a plurality of yarns. The layers of fabric are connected to each other at least partially through interweaving of the yarns of the two layers with each other. The air-bag includes at least one inflatable region, in which the two layers of fabric are substantially not connected to each other, and at least one non-inflatable region. There is a first number of crossing points of yarns that form the one layer of fabric, and there is a second number of connections between the two layers, wherein at each connection a yarn of the layer of fabric extends across to the other layer and passes over the far side of the a yarn of the other layer, and wherein the second number is no more than 0.0033 times the first number.