GB2125919A - Sealed bulkhead connection - Google Patents

Abstract

A bulkhead, is kept air- and dust- tight therein by a cover plate (42) which tightly closes a corresponding bulkhead opening (40) and which includes passages (44). The passages (44) are tightly closed by means of plugs, a half-connection (60, 62) of a plug-in connection is to be inserted in an air- and dust-tight manner for each line to be laid. A part of the line (36', 36'') concerned is connected to each of the two half-connections (60, 62). The half coupling 60 is equipped with a flat peripheral groove 72 which carries a sealing ring 74 which co- operates with a depression in 42. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Sealing bulkhead connection or transit unit for pipelines, hoses or electrical cables for motor vehicles The invention concerns a sealing bulkhead connection or transit unit for pipelines, or electrical cables for motor vehicles, with a cover plate which can be fastened to a bulkhead to cover a passage, which cover plate is perforated by a plurality of openings having parallel axis in order to produce a sealed transit or lead-through of the lines, hoses or cables.

Bulkhead connectors or transit units used in motor vehicle construction usually include a sealing body consisting of a rubber-elastic material, which is inserted in an opening provided, for example, in the front bulkhead of a motor vehicle body.

The passages or through openings provided in the sealing body are usually performed and provided with a web-like covering, which can be easily pierced.

Such bulkhead connectors or transit units are particularly used for electrical cables. They are not suitable for compressed air lines, oil pressure lines or other pipelines, and, in particular, difficulties are involved in introducing bundles of such pipelines into the passenger area, for example the driver's cabin of a commercial vehicle, so as to resist tension and avoid draughts.

In order to overcome these difficulties and to produce a bulkhead connector or transit unit suitable, in particular, for the secure and draughttight installation of pipe and hose lines (hereinafter also referred to as "lines"), the bulkhead connector or transit unit also offering the possibility of subsequently installing additional lines without substantial outlay or assembly, a bulkhead transit unit of the type described at the beginning has already been proposed (German Patent Application P 30 48 791.3-12), whose cover plate forms a perforated base, to one side of which a piercable cover, which sealingly closes all the passages or through openings, is attached.

The perforated plate is surrounded on one of its sides by a neck which, together with the perforated plate and the cover, bounds an upwardly open pouring space into which pouring space a fluid and preferably permanently resilient casting mass can be poured in order to seal the passages after the lines or cables to be laid have been installed.

It is, however, a common feature of the bulkhead connectors or transit units mentioned that the pipelines, cables or hoses have to pull through the passages of these bulkhead transit units and can only be laid and connected, at least in the passenger area or behind the dashboard, when they have been previously assembled outside the passenger compartment. This has a disadvantageous effect on the assembly of a vehicle and the corresponding assembly work before the installation of the corresponding lines is correspondingly awkward and time consuming.

The invention comes into action at this point and seeks to provide a connector or transit unit which makes it possible to bring the ends of pipelines, hoses or cables, which are equipped with a half-connection of a plug-in connection and have to be passed in a sealed manner through a bulkhead of a vehicle body, in particular rigid or semi-rigid pipe and hose lines, in a favourable manner to the corresponding connecting point of the connector or transit unit, in such a way that, particularly in restricted space conditions, marked bending or kinking of these parts of the lines, hoses or cables can be avoided. The bulkhead connector or transit unit should be characterised by a small installation space requirement.

By this means, the invention should, for example, make it possible in commercial vehicle construction separately to carry out all the assembly work on the laying and testing of compressed air lines on the chassis frame and in the driver's cabin before the installation of the latter on the chassis frame and to put the compressed air installation into action rapidly after the installation of the driver's cabin.

According to the invention, there is provided a bulkhead connector or transit unit for lines, such as pipes, hoses or cables to be installed in a vehicle and passed through a bulkhead opening, with a cover body which is to cover the bulkhead opening, can be fastened to the bulkhead concerned and has a peripheral fastening flange, which connector or transit unit is penetrated by a multiplicity of mutually parallel passages which are provided in rows in wall parts arranged to be mutually parallel and at least partially in different planes and into each of which a first halfconnection of a plug-in connection which can be attached to a part of a line to be passed through the cover body, can be inserted and fastened to form a seal, the second half-connection, which can be connected to the first half-connection, being attachable to the other part of the line, wherein the wall parts having the passages and provided in a step-shaped arrangement each enclose an acute angle with the plane defined by the contact surface of the fastening flange.

A bulkhead connector or transit unit of this type makes unnecessary the awkward pulling of pipelines, hoses and/or electrical cables associated with the assembly of the vehicle body, through their passages; they form rather a connection device for the clearly arranged, easily monitorable and air- and dust-tight production of plug-in connections between line or cable parts, which have to be pre-assembled and inspected for functioning in vehicle assemblies which are still separate from one another.

It provides the further advantage that when a defect occurs, it is only necessary to exchange the line or cable part which is faulty, the connection between the line or cable parts which have to be separated being just as easy to break as it is to reconnect.

In order, particularly for line parts consisting of hoses, to make acting torsional forces ineffective at the connection points, the half-connection of the plug-in connection located in the passage is, in an embodiment of the invention, provided to be secure from twisting, its assembly being particularly easy to execute if it can be fastened in the passages by engagement only.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the passages are provided in rows in the cover plate, the rows placed at equal parallel distances from one another having the same number of passages.

Such an arrangement of the passages relative to one another makes clearly arranged work possible for the production of the plug-in connections, it being possible to substantially further simplify the relative arrangement of the line or cable parts if the individual passages are allocated symbols, for example numbers, with which the line or cable parts to be connected to one another are also marked.

In a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, the cover plate is step-shaped and has a number of mutually parallel, in particular equally wide, plate sections included, when installed, at an acute angle to the vertical; the number of plate sections corresponds to the number of rows of passages and each plate section is equipped with a row of passages.

This shaping of the cover plate offers the advantage of making it possible to carry out plugin connections advantageously even in restricted assembly spaces and of bringing the lines in a correspondingly favourable manner to the plug-in connections, because the step-type arrangement of the cover plate and its location on a substantially vertical body bulkhead part having a corresponding bulkhead opening, makes possible an oblique arrangement in space, relative to the vertical, of the plug-in connections. Pipelines, cables and hoses can thus, for example, be led upwards in restricted, shaft-type intermediate body spaces and, because of the oblique position of the half-couplings held in the cover plate, can be connected to these with only a slight amount of bending. This advantage is important particularly when laying metal pipelines.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of an example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:~ Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of a partially cut away side view of the driver's cabin mounted on a chassis of a commercial vehicle arranged as a forward control vehicle, Figure 2 shows a detail, to a larger scale than that of Figure 1, illustrating the cover plate of the bulkhead transit unit in longitudinal section, Figure 3 shows a view of the cover plate seen in the direction of the arrow A of Figure 2, and Figure 4 shows a partial section through the cover plate along the line lV-lV of Figure 2, a half-connection of a plug-in connection for the mutual connection of two hose parts being inserted in a passage, while the other halfconnection is shown in the disconnected position and a plug is inserted in a further passage.

In Figure 1, a driver's cabin 10 of a commercial vehicle, designed for example as a forward control vehicle, is generally indicated, the driver's cabin being mounted on a chassis frame 12.

The passenger compartment of the driver's cabin is limited towards the front by an internal, substantially vertical bulkhead 14, which merges into a floor through inclined part 1 6 serving as the foot support. An instrument panel 20 is provided in known manner above the internal bulkhead 14, to which instrument panel 20 the internal bulkhead 14 is connected below, the internal bulkhead 14 being located at a relatively small distance from a front panel 22 encasing the driver's cabin at the front.

The commercial vehicle has a compressed air installation to supply various compressed airoperated devices, including the braking installation. Its hand or parking brake can be put into and out of operation in known manner by a brake valve 26 manually operated by means of an operating lever 24, which brake valve 26 is integrated into the instrument panel 20. The footbrake of the braking installation can be controlled by a brake valve 30 operable by means of a foot pedal 28.

A compressed air container 32, which is charged by means of a compressor is provided on the chassis frame 12 in order to supply the devices operated by compressed air. Attached to this compressed air container 32 is, for example, a distribution head 34, from which a multiplicity of compressed air lines, for example compressed air hoses, lead to the individual devices or to the valves which control them. For simplicity in the present example, only two compressed air lines 36, 38, preferably formed by hoses, are shown, these pressure lines 36, 38 being led through the internal bulkhead 14 to one of the valves 26 or 30 in each case. The compressed air lines or hoses leading from these valves to the brakes and thus also repassing through the inner bulkhead 14 are not shown either.

When laying the compressed air hoses or compressed air pipes, oil pressure pipes or other pipes, lines and electrical cables, which have to be led from the chassis frame 12 through the inner bulkhead 14 to the inside of the passenger compartment of the driver's cabin and/or out again, it is necessary to guarantee that the bulkhead opening is air- and dust-tight.

For this purpose, a bulkhead opening 40 of, for example, rectangular shape is formed in the inner front bulkhead 14 (Figure 2), which bulkhead opening is closed by a cover plate preferably attached to its inner side and indicated overall by 42. This cover plate has a multiplicity of passages 44 having parallel axes which are located and distributed among, for example, a total of five mutually parallel rows, three passages being located next to one another and at a distance from one another in each row.

As is shown in Figure 2, the cover plate has such a step-shaped form, seen from the side, that the mutually parallel step surfaces 46 are directed at an acute angle of, for example, approximately 450 to the vertical. The step walls 48 limiting the step surfaces along one of their long sides and preferably located at right angles to them, receive the individual groups of three passages 44 each.

The cover plate 42 is equipped at its periphery with a raised, plane fastening flange 50, by means of which the cover plate can be fastened, with a seal 52 between, to the internal end bulkhead 14 by means of riveting or screwing, the fastening flange 50 being equipped with corresponding holes 54.

Plug-in connections 56 (Figure 4), which can be inserted in the passages 44, serve to pass a pipe or a cable through the cover plate 42, while passages 44 remaining unused can each be closed using a plug 58.

Parts 36' or 38' and 36" or 38" of the compressed air pipes 36 and 38 respectively can be connected to the half-connections 60 and 62 respectively. One half-connection 60 of the plugin connections is preferably located so that it cannot be twisted in the passages 44 and is preferably secured axially by engagement. For this purpose, the half-connection 60 has a multiplicity of flats on the outer periphery and preferably forms a hexagon, to whose peripheral shape the passages 44 of the cover plate 42 are complementary, so that the half-connection 60 can positively engage in the passages.

In order to engage the half-couplings 60 in the passages, the latter are equipped with engagement tongues 64, 66 located diametrically opposite to one another and protruding from one side of the cover plate, these tongues engaging in a peripheral groove 68 of a passage when the half-connection 60 is inserted into it. This peripheral groove 68 is provided in the region of one end of the half-coupling, the half-coupling being conically narrowed on the outer periphery at this end so that, when the half-coupling is introduced into a passage, the engagement tongues 64, 66 into contact with the conical peripheral annular surface 70, are forced apart and are thus pre-loaded for engagement in this manner.

In the region of the other end, the half-coupling 60 is equipped with a flat peripheral groove 72, in which a sealing ring 74, which protrudes beyond the hexagonal profile, is held. With this sealing ring 74, on the side of the cover plate 42 opposite to the engagement tongues 64, 66 and co-axial with the half-connection or the passage receiving it, is associated an annular collar or a preferably circular-cylindrical depression 76 formed into the cover plate, on the inner peripheral surface of which depression 76 the sealing ring comes into contact under pressure, and the air- and dust-tight arrangement of the plug-in connections 56 comes about in this manner.

The half-connection 60 forms a bush having a cylindrical recess 78 accessible from one of its ends, in which bush the half-connection 62 with a cylindrical stem 80 complementary to the recess 78 can be inserted to connect with the halfconnection 62, which forms a plug, can connect releasably to the cylindrical recess 78 of the halfconnection 60, two radially movable engagement elements 82, 84 are, for example, provided and these can engage in a corresponding peripheral groove 86 of the half-connection 62.

Both half-connections 60, 62 are provided with axially extending through-bores 90 and 88, respectively, whose mutual connection in the connected condition of the two half-connections is arranged to be pressure-tight, for which purpose an annular seal 92 is located on the stem of the half-connection 62, this annular seal 92 being in contact with the internal periphery of the cylindrical recess 78 so as to form a seal. The bores 88 and 90 are each continued by stub connections 94 and 96, respectively, formed on both half-connections, to which stubs a part 36' or 36" of the compressed air pipes 36 or 38 can be connected. Accordingly, one pipe piece is located in front of the cover plate 42 and the other pipe piece is located behind it.

In the illustrative embodiment shown, the two parts of the compressed air line 36 are formed by plastics hoses, for whose connection to the halfconnection the stub connectors 94, 96 of the latter have, seen in longitudinal section, a saw tooth-type profile on the outer periphery, which reliably holds the plastics hose concerned onto the stub connectors stubs by means of the barb-like projections without additional fastening means.

The closing plugs formed as plastics mouldings for closing off passages 44, which are not required, of the cover plate 42 have the same bush shape as the half-connections 60; they are accordingly similarly engageable in the passages and their seat can be sealed by means of an annular seal 74.

The arrangement of the plug-in connections 56 and their half-connection 60, 62 and that of the closing plugs 58 can also be carried out in a different manner, the only important feature is that when inserting the half-connection 60 or the closing plugs 58, an air-tight and dust-tight axially secured retention in the cover plate is guaranteed, preferably in a manner such that no additional fastening means such as screwed elements and similar parts are required for this purpose. In this sense, the construction shown in Figure 4 represents a solution which can be used with particular advantage.

As may be seen from Figures 1 and 2, the bulkhead connector or transit unit according to the invention, together with the cover plate 42 and the plug-in connections 56, offers the substantial advantage that all the assembly work, including the testing of pipes or hoses and electrical cables, for example in commercial vehicles on the chassis frame and in the driver's cabin, can be carried out separately before these components are put together, for which purpose the lines must be subdivided into two parts.The one pipe part to be installed in a passenger compartment or in the driver's cabin, for example the part 36", is to be connected in this way, for example, to the brake valve 26 of the handbrake, located in the instrument panel 20, and to a half-connection 60 inserted in a passage of the cover plate 42, while the other pipe part 36' is, for example, to be connected to the compressed air container 32 and to the half-connection 62 and, after the construction of the driver's cabin is completed, is to be connected to the pipe part 36" by connecting the two half-connections,60,62. The cover plate 42 then guarantees an air and dusttight passage of the compressed air line 36 through the bulkhead opening 40 of the inner front bulkhead 14.In the same way, a multiplicity of the further pipes, hoses or cables can be passed through the inner front bulkhead 14 or another bulkhead of a passenger compartment.

The step-shaped arrangement of the cover plate 42 and the arrangement of the passenger 44 in the step walls 48 makes passage of lines through a bulkhead possible even in a restricted assembly space 100, such as is formed, for example, between the inner front bulkhead 14 and the front panel 22 of the driver's cabin 10. In fact, the oblique position of the plug-in connection 56 makes it possible, for example, to introduce the lines, which have to be led from the chassis of the commercial vehicle shown in Figure 1 into the passenger compartment, relatively steeply into the assembly space 100 and hence they only have to be bent by a relatively small amount. The cover plate can, of course, however, also be shaped such that the plug-in connections 56 are located with their longitudinal axis normal to the plane of the plate.

Claims (5)

1. A bulkhead connector or transit unit for lines, such as pipes, hoses or cables to be installed in a vehicle and passed through a bulkhead opening, with a cover body which is to cover the bulkhead opening, can be fastened to the bulkhead concerned and has a peripheral fastening flange, which connector or transit unit is penetrated by a multiplicity of mutually parallel passages which are provided in rows in wall parts arranged to be mutually parallel and at least partially in different planes, and into each of which a first halfconnection of a plug-in connection which can be attached to a part of a line to be passed through the cover body, can be inserted and fastened to form a seal, the second half-connection, which can be connected to the first half-connection, being attachable to the other part of the line, wherein the wall parts having the passages and provided in a step-shaped arrangement each enclosure an acuate angle with the plane defined by the contact surface of the fastening flange.

2. A Unit as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the passages in order to fix the half-connection which can be inserted into these, are equipped with engagement tongues which can engage in a peripheral groove of the half-connection, these engagement tongues being located mutually diametrically opposite on the inner side of the wall parts having the passages.

3. A unit as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein for each passage as annular collar or a cylindrical depression is located coaxially on the side of the wall part opposite to the engagement tongues, the internal peripheral surface of which collar or depression forms a contact surface for sealing purposes for a sealing ring located on the outer perimeter of the half-connection, which can be inserted into the passage.

4. A unit as claimed in any one of the preceding Claims, wherein the cover body is formed as a moulding in a synthetic plastics material and, in particular, the wall parts equipped with the passages have a greater thickness than the plate sections extending between them and, in particular, at right angles to them.

5. A bulkhead connector or transit unit substantially as hereinbefore described and with reference to the accompanying drawings.