Multi parts protective garment for motorbikers

• US 20040111790A1
• Filed: 06/16/2003
• Published: 06/17/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dainese S.p.A.
• Original Assignee: Dainese S.p.A.
• Inventors: Dainese, Lino
• Granted Patent: US 6,951,033 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 2/456
• CPC Class Codes: A41D 13/018 inflatable automatically
• CPC Class Codes: A41D 13/0531 Spine
• CPC Class Codes: A41D 2600/102 Motorcycling
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 2/03 Inflatable garment

Abstract

The present invention concerns a multi parts garment having multiple means for the protection of motor bikers and/or of athletes practicing various sports against traumas from accidental falls and violent impacts; said garment has in cooperation a jacket having seam sections in preset tearing yarn, a gilet internally joined thereto and integrally associated to plural pockets in a fabric having a predetermined porosity and preset to be inflated by means of compressed gas bottles, which are advantageously overlapped, or adhering to a back protector protecting the spine and having a rigid polymeric structure, and an electronic unit, receiving pulses from acceleration sensors between the motor biker and the motor vehicle.

Claims

1. A multi parts garment, in particular for motor bikers or for athletes of various sports, comprising:

protective means for the protection of the user against traumas and fractures from falls and/or impacts against obstacles;

a garment in form of a jacket manufactured in a natural or synthetic material, said jacket having seam sections made in a yarn with a preset specific breaking values of a tearing tension upon operation of said protective means;

a gilet manufactured in a flexible composite material, close-fitting and joined with zippers or the like to the inner wall of said jacket so as to internally house between said jacket and said gilet said protective means, said gilet having regions in form of seams resisting to the breaking thereof from a tearing tension upon operation of said protective means; and

a back protector for protecting the spine, in a polymeric material, having a substantially rigid structure, apt to be arranged in a respective central pocket obtained internally to the gilet.

2. The garment according to claim 1, wherein said protective means comprises at least one pocket in a double-wall resisting fabric and apt to be inflated following an impact or a marked deceleration of the motor biker, said at least one pocket being arranged at the central back- and side-covering area of the jacket, and apt to cooperate with said back protector, the arrangement being such that said at least one pocket be, following the inflation thereof, apt to envelop substantially the thoracic and the lumbar parts of said motor biker.

3. The garment according to claim 2, wherein said protective means comprises at least one high-pressure gas source connected to said at least one pocket.

4. The garment according to claim 1, further comprising:

an electronic unit integral to the jacket and apt to receive pulses from acceleration sensors both of the motor biker and of the motor vehicle;

a connecting circuit between the electronic unit and the gas source; and

at least one solenoid valve connected to said gas source apt to cooperate with said electronic unit, when the latter receives a pulse from an acceleration sensor.

5. The garment according to claim 4, wherein said unit comprises:

a sensor overriding device; and

a display onto the wall of the jacket in a position accessible to the motor biker'"'"'s field of vision.

6. The garment according to claim 1, wherein said seam sections made in a yarn having preset specific breaking values of tearing tension thereof are aligned in total overlapping to said at least one pocket underlying the gilet, the arrangement being such as to allow the full expansion of said at least one pocket following a sudden inflation thereof and the breaking of said seams.

7. The garment according to claim 1, wherein said at least one pocket in a deflated state is contained and enveloped by fabric gathered in a position underlying said seam sections onto the jacket, and said fabric being porous in a mesh-like structure in order to elastically stabilize the same to a sudden inflation thereof.

8. The garment according to claim 1, wherein said at least one pocket is manufactured in a material having a predetermined porosity apt to allow the flow from inside thereof of the inflation gas during an impact against an obstacle as well as after a certain time interval from the triggering of the inflation of the same.

9. A garment according to claim 1, wherein said at least one gas source is firmly positioned between said at least one pocket and said back protector.

10. The garment according to claim 9, wherein said at least one gas source is a small-size bottle provided with coupling and releasing members apt to cooperate with said at least one pocket when arranged in said back protector.

11. The garment according to claim 4, wherein the acceleration sensors between the motor biker and the motor vehicle are selected from a group comprising:

inertia switch mechanical sensors; and

magnetic retention sensors,

said sensors being processed for sensing impacts within response times in the order of a few milliseconds.

12. The garment according to claim 4, wherein the acceleration sensors between the motor biker and the motor vehicle comprise electronic-type, piezoelectric and piezoresistive sensors having a laminar shape and apt to determine the exact direction of provenance of the acceleration according to respectively orthogonal directions.

13. The garment according to claim 1, wherein said jacket and said gilet is made of a textile material having a composite structure with conductive fibers in a quantity such as to exhibit an uniform electrical continuity.

14. The garment according to claim 13, wherein inside said textile composite material of the jacket and of the gilet fiber optics, or fiber optics sensors, are incorporated.

15. The garment according to claim 14, wherein the fiber optics are connected to an optoelectronics instrumentation of said unit.

16. The garment according to claim 15, wherein the inlets and the outlets of each fiber optics from the gilet and/or the jacket are protected by small rubber disks glued onto the surface of the same manufact.

17. The garment according to claim 1, comprising three inflatable pockets.

18. The garment according to claim 17, comprising three compressed gas sources, each thereof being connected to a respective pocket.