Air Bag Deployment
Air Bag Deployment
An airbag is a vehicle safety device. It is an occupant restraint consisting of a flexible envelope designed to inflate rapidly in an automobile collision, to prevent vehicle occupants from striking interior objects such as the steering wheel or window.
Terminology
Because no action by the vehicle occupant is required to activate or use the airbag, it is considered a passive device. This is in contrast to seat belts, which are considered active devices because the vehicle occupant must act to enable them. Note that this is not related to active and passive safety, which are, respectively, systems designed to prevent accidents in the first place and systems designed to minimize accidents once they occur. For example, the car's Anti-lock Braking System will qualify as an active-safety device while both its seatbelts and airbags will qualify as passive-safety devices. Further terminological confusion can arise from the fact that passive devices and systems — those requiring no input or action by the vehicle occupant — can themselves operate in an active manner; an airbag is one such device. Vehicle safety professionals are generally careful in their use of language to avoid this sort of confusion, though advertising principles sometimes prevent such syntactic caution in the consumer marketing of safety features.
Various manufacturers have over time used different terms for airbags. General Motors' first bags, in the 1970s, were marketed as the Air Cushion Restraint System (ACRS) . Common terms in North America include Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) and Supplemental Inflatable Restraint (SIR) ; these terms reflect the airbag system's nominal role as a supplement to active restraints, i.e., seat belts.
History
Invention
An American inventor, John Wenrick, a retired industrial engineer, designed the original safety cushion for automotive use in 1952 at his kitchen table. His patent lasted only 17 years - long before mainstream automotive usage. Dr. David S. Breed, invented and developed a key component for automotive use: the ball-in-tube inertial sensor for crash detection. Breed Corporation then marketed this innovation first in 1967 to Chrysler. A similar "Auto-Ceptor" crash-restraint, developed by Eaton, Yale & Towne Inc. for Ford was soon offered as an automatic safety system in the USA, while the Italian Eaton-Livia company offered a variant with localized air cushions.
As a supplement to seatbelts
Airbags for passenger cars were introduced in the United States in the mid-1970s, when seat belt usage rates in the country were quite low. Ford built an experimental fleet of cars with airbags in 1971, followed by General Motors in 1973 on Chevrolet vehicles. The early fleet of experimental GM vehicles equipped with airbags experienced seven fatalities, one of which was later suspected to have been caused by the airbag.
In 1974, GM made the ACRS or "Air Cushion Restraint System" available as a regular production option (RPO code AR3) in some full-size Buick, Cadillac and Oldsmobile models. The GM cars from the 1970s equipped with ACRS have a driver side airbag, a driver side knee restraint (which consists of a padded lower dashboard) and a passenger side airbag. The passenger side airbag, protects both front passengers and unlike most newer ones, it integrates a knee cushion, a torso cushion and it also has dual stage deployment which varies depending on the force of the impact. The cars equipped with ACRS have lap belts for all seating positions but they do not have shoulder belts. These were already mandatory equipment in the United Stated on closed cars without airbags for the driver and outer front passenger seating positions.
The automotive industry's first passenger side knee airbag (not separate) was already used on the 1970s General Motors cars, it was integrated in the passenger airbag that had a knee cushion and a torso cushion.
The development of airbags coincided with an international interest in automobile safety legislation. Some safety experts advocated a performance-based occupant protection standard rather than a standard mandating a particular technical solution, which could rapidly become outdated and might not be a cost-effective approach. As countries successively mandated seat belt restraints, there was less emphasis placed on other designs for several decades.
Manufacturers emphasise that an airbag is not, and can not be an alternative to seatbelts. They emphasise that they are only supplemental to a seatbelt. Hence the commonly used term "Supplemental Restraint System" or SRS. It is vitally important that drivers and passengers are aware of this. In the majority of cases of death caused by air bags, seat belts were not worn.
As a supplemental restraint
Frontal airbag
The auto industry and research and regulatory communities have moved away from their initial view of the airbag as a seat belt replacement, and the bags are now nominally designated as Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) or Supplemental Inflatable Restraints .
In 1980, Mercedes-Benz introduced the airbag in Germany as an option on its high-end S-Class (W126). In the Mercedes system, the sensors would automatically pre-tension the seat belts to reduce occupant's motion on impact (now a common feature), and then deploy the airbag on impact. This integrated the seat belts and airbag into a restraint system, rather than the airbag being considered an alternative to the seat belt.
In 1987, the Porsche 944 turbo became the first car in the world to have driver and passenger airbags as standard equipment. The Porsche 944 and 944S had this as an available option. The same year also saw the first airbag in a Japanese car, the Honda Legend.
Airbags became common in the 1980s, with Chrysler and Ford introducing them in the mid-1980s; it was Chrysler that made them standard equipment across its entire line in 1990 (except for trucks until 1995).
Audi was relatively late to offer airbag systems on a broader scale; until the 1994 model year, for example, the 80/90, by far Audi's 'bread-and-butter' model, as well as the 100/200, did not have airbags in their standard versions. Instead, the German automaker until then relied solely on its proprietary procon-ten restraint system.
In Europe, airbags were almost entirely absent from family cars until the early 1990s, except for Saab, who made them standard on the 900 Turbo in 1989 and on all models in 1990. The first European Ford to feature an airbag was the facelifted Escort MK5b in 1992; within a year, the entire Ford range had at least one airbag as standard. By the mid 1990s, European market leaders such as Vauxhall/Opel, Rover, Peugeot, Renault and Fiat had included airbags as at least optional equipment across their model ranges. By the end of the decade, it was very rare to find a mass market car without an airbag, and some late 1990s products, such as the Volkswagen Golf Mk4 also featured side airbags. The Peugeot 306 was a classical example of how commonplace airbags became on mass market cars during the 1990s. On its launch in early 1993 most of the range did not even have driver airbags as an option. By 1999 however, side airbags were available on several variants.
During the 2000s side airbags were commonplace on even budget cars, such as the smaller-engined versions of the Ford Fiesta and Peugeot 206, and curtain airbags were also becoming regular features on mass market cars. The Toyota Avensis, launched in 1998, was the first mass market car to be sold in Europe with a total of nine airbags. Although in some countries, such as Russia, airbags are still not standard equipment on all cars, such as those from Lada.
Variable force deployment front airbags were developed to help minimize injury from the airbag itself.
Shaped airbags
The Citroën C4 provides the first "shaped" driver airbag, made possible by this car's unusual fixed hub steering wheel.
Side airbag
There are essentially two types of side airbags commonly used today, the side torso airbag and the side curtain airbag.
Most vehicles equipped with side curtain airbags also include side torso airbags. However some exceptions such as the Chevrolet Cobalt, 2007-09 model Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra, and 2009-10 Dodge Ram do not feature the side torso airbag.
Side torso airbag
Side-impact airbags or side torso airbags are a category of airbag usually located in the seat, and inflate between the seat occupant and the door. These airbags are designed to reduce the risk of injury to the pelvic and lower abdomen regions. Some v
YouTube - Air Bag Deployment Under Stuffed Animal
We had an air bag from a Crown Victoria and decided to set it off with a bear sitting on top of it. YouTube does this no justice, I recorded it in high frame rate and even at ...
YouTube - Air Bag Deployment Party
maybe u should have fixed it instead of blowing it up lol. o well explosions are ok as long as u told the person their car now has no airbag and u wasted a thousand $ (thats how ...
Assessment of Air Bag Deployment Loads
Engineering technical paper: Assessment of Air Bag Deployment Loads
Air bag deployment inhibitor circuit - Google Patent ...
Patent number: 5879024 Filing date: Jun 1, 1998 Issue date: Mar 9, 1999
Air bag with deployment flap - Patent application ...
Abstract: An apparatus (10) for helping to protect an occupant (20) of a vehicle (12) includes an inflatable vehicle occupant protection device (14) inflatable from a ...
Air Bag Deployment During Extrication - Firehouse ...
Air Bag Deployment During Extrication University of Extrication ... Over the past few years, people have asked me, "Other than the Dayton incident, have any air bags deployed during ...
AIR BAG DEPLOYMENT SYSTEM - Patent application - for ...
Abstract: An air bag deployment system for use in a vehicle is disclosed have a frame, an air bag, a first deployment chute portion, and a second deployment chute portion.
Air bag safety.
PARTICIPANTS: Occupants of air bag-equipped vehicles who were involved in crashes on US roads. RESULTS: Of 618 reported occupant injuries related to air bag deployment, an ...
Air Bag Deployment Frequency and Injury Risks
Engineering technical paper: Air Bag Deployment Frequency and Injury Risks
Air bag deployment system - Google Patent Search
Patent number: 5542695 Filing date: Dec 28, 1993 Issue date: Aug 6, 1996
