Headlamp for motor vehicle

• US 5,400,226 A
• Filed: 09/09/1992
• Issued: 03/21/1995
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/1991
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Original Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Inventors: Hogrefe, Henning
• Primary Examiner(s): Lazarus, Ira S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): LEE, Y MY QUACH
• Application Number:
  US07/930,388
• Time in Patent Office: 923 Days
• Field of Search: 362/61, 362/297, 362/304, 362/346, 362/347, 362/310, 362/296
• US Class Current: 362/517
• CPC Class Codes: F21S 41/333 with discontinuity at the junction between adjacent areas

Abstract

A headlamp for motor vehicles, particularly high-beam headlamps has a reflector having a light outlet opening and also having a central region and a peripheral region with different reflecting surfaces, a discontinuity formed at the transition between the central and peripheral region, a light disc covering the light outlet opening of the reflector, and a luminous element arranged on a center axis of the reflector, so that images of the luminous element are reflected so as to be horizontally scattered by one of the regions and images of the luminous element are reflected in a center of a light distribution produced by the reflector by another of the regions.

Claims

1. A high-beam headlamp for motor vehicles, generating a light distribution to illuminate a roadway in front of said motor vehicle, said headlamp comprising a reflector having a light outlet opening and also having a central region with a reflecting surface and a peripheral region with a reflecting surface, said reflecting surface of said peripheral region being different from said reflecting region of said central region;

a discontinuity formed as a transition between said central region and said peripheral region;

a light disc covering said light outlet opening of said reflector; and

a luminous element arranged on a center axis of said reflector, said reflecting surface of said peripheral region being formed to reflect images of said luminous element into a center of said light distribution and of said roadway to provide in said center high light intensity values, said reflecting surface of said central region containing a parabola in a vertical longitudinal section as a section curve and containing a curve for horizontally scattering images of said luminous element in a horizontal longitudinal section so that said central region reflects images of said luminous element as a horizontally scattered luminous beam on the roadway determining a width of the light distribution being generated by said headlamp, said central region of said reflector being completely uninterruptedly surrounded by said peripheral region of said reflector.

2. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said reflecting surface of said central region contains a hyperbola in said horizontal longitudinal section as a section curve.

3. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said reflecting surface of said central region contains said curve similar to a hyperbola in said horizontal longitudinal section as a section curve.

4. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said reflecting surface of said central region contains an ellipse in a horizontal longitudinal section as said section curve.

5. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said reflecting surface of said central region contains said curve similar to an ellipse in said horizontal longitudinal section as a section curve.

6. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said central region is divided into two halves meeting in a vertical central plane of said reflector, said halves having optical axes which extend in a horizontal central plane so as to diverge from one another.

7. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said reflecting surface of said peripheral region contains parabolas as section curves in an axial longitudinal section.

8. A headlamp as defined in claim 1, wherein said reflecting surface of said peripheral region contains curves similar to parabolas as section curves in an axial longitudinal section.