AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

ABSTRACT
The introduction of airbags into automobiles has significantly improved the safety of
the occupants. Airbags are the fruit of deep scientific study and research. It has become
standard equipment for all new passenger vehicles manufactured and marketed in the United
States. Unfortunately, airbags can also cause fatal injuries if the occupant is a child smaller
(in weight) than a typical six-year-old. Between 1986 and 2001, 19 infants and 85 children
were killed by airbags during relatively minor vehicle collisions. In addition to these infant
and child deaths, there have also been seven adults killed by airbags due to their proximity to
the airbag during deployment. In response to these deaths, the National Highway
Transportation and Safety Administration has mandated that, starting in the 2006 model year,
all automobiles be equipped with automatic airbag suppression [1]. The suppression of the
airbag based on the type of occupant can be framed as a two-class classification problem,
while the suppression of the airbag based on the location of the occupant relative to the airbag
can be framed as an occupant tracking problem. An essential focus of potential enhancements
to air bag system centers around crash sensing technologies and electronic sensors.
Mechanical sensors are analyzed to reveal their functioning characteristics. The
implementation of air bags and related occupant restraints requires extensive knowledge from
various engineering disciplines, in particular mechanical, chemical, electrical, and
increasingly electronic expertise. It is a subject presenting truly challenging tasks in both
analytical and experimental phases of product developments. Over the last decade of
developments, it has become obvious that:
1) The market is evolving toward a greater usage of electronic contents.
2) The demand of advanced functions is stimulating the integration of various sensing
technologies. Research and development activities in related areas are likely to continue for
years ahead.

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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

TABLE OF CONTENT
SL.NO
Chapter 1 :
Chapter 2 :
2.1 :
Chapter 3 :
3.1 :
3.2 :
4.1 :
4.1.1 :
4.1.2 :
Chapter 5 :
Chapter 6 :
Chapter 7 :

Chapter name
Introduction
Principle of Airbag
Laws of Motion
Parts of an Airbag
Working of Airbags
Chemical Reactions
Analysis of Crash Sensors
Crash Sensor with damping
Spring Mass Sensor
Future of Airbags
Disarming of Airbags
References

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INTRODUCTION
For years, the trusty seat belt provided the sole form of passive restraint in our cars. There
were debates about their safety, especially relating to children, but over time, much of the
country adopted mandatory seat-belt laws. Statistics have shown that the use of seat belts has
saved thousands of lives that might have been lost in collisions. Like seat belts, the concept of
an airbag -- a soft pillow to land against in a crash -- has been around for many years. Airbags
are a type of automobile safety restraint like seatbelts consisting of a flexible fabric envelope
or cushion designed to inflate rapidly during a collision. They are gas-inflated cushions built
into the steering wheel, dashboard, door, roof, or seat of a car that use a crash sensor to
trigger a rapid reaction to protect from the impact of an accident. Modern vehicles may
contain multiple airbag modules on various side and frontal locations and sensors may deploy
one or more airbags in an impact zone at variable rates based on the type, angle and severity
of impact. Airbags are normally designed with the intention of supplementing the protection
of an occupant who is correctly restrained with a seatbelt. The first patent on an inflatable
crash-landing device for airplanes was filed during World War II. In the 1980s, the first
commercial airbags appeared in automobiles. No safety device has consumed more attention
and resources than the airbag. It is known with high confidence that when a crash occurs, the
presence of an airbag reduces fatality risk to drivers, whether belted or unbelted. Even after
about ten million airbag deployments, the effect of airbags on different levels of injury risk is
known only approximately. Virtually all new cars have airbags, and theyre saving lives.
Theyre reducing driver deaths by about 14 percent, and passenger bags reduce deaths by
about 11 percent. People who use safety belts may think they dont need airbags. But they do.
Airbags and lap/shoulder belts work together as a system, and one without the other isnt as
effective. Deaths are 12 percent lower among drivers with belts and 9 percent lower among
belted passengers. Since year 1998, all new cars sold in the United States have been required
to have airbags on both driver and passenger sides. Then came seat-mounted and doormounted side airbags. Today, some cars go far beyond having dual airbags to having six or
even eight airbags. Having evoked some of the same controversy that surrounded the use of
seat-belts its early years, airbags are the subject of serious government and industry research.

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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

PRINCIPLE:
LAWS OF MOTION:
We know that moving objects have momentum (the product of the mass and the velocity of
an object). Unless an outside force acts on an object, the object will continue to move at its
present speed and direction. Cars consist of several objects, including the vehicle itself, loose
objects in the car and, of course, passengers. If these objects are not restrained, they will
continue moving at whatever speed the car is traveling at, even if the car is stopped by a
collision. Stopping an object's momentum requires force acting over a period of time. When a
car crashes, the force required to stop an object is very great because the car's momentum has
changed instantly while the passengers' has not, there is not much time to work with. The
goal of any supplemental restraint system is to help stop the passenger while doing as little
damage to him or her as possible. What an airbag does is to slow down the passenger's speed
to zero with little or no damage. The constraints that it has to work within are huge. The
airbag has the space between the passenger and the steering wheel or dashboard and only a
fraction of a second to inflate. Even that tiny amount of space and time is valuable, however,
if the system can slow the passenger speed evenly rather than forcing an abrupt halt to his or
her motion.

PARTS OF AN AIRBAG:
1. Bag
2. Sensor
3. Inflatory System.
The goal of an airbag is to slow down the passenger's forward motion as evenly as possible in
a fraction of a second. There are three parts to an airbag that help to accomplish this feat:

The bag itself is made of a thin, nylon fabric, which is folded into the steering wheel
or dashboard or, more recently, the seat or door.

The sensor is the device that tells the bag to inflate.

Inflatory system uses the rapid pulse of hot nitrogen gas to inflate the bag.

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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

WORKING:
Inflation happens when there is a collision force equal to running into a brick wall at 10 to 15
miles per hour (16 to 24 km per hour). As the vehicle crashes, a mechanical switch is flipped
as there is a mass shift which closes an electrical contact, telling the sensors that a crash has
occurred. The sensors receive information from an accelerometer built into a microchip.
Scientists needed a way to set off a chemical reaction that would produce the nitrogen gas
which would inflate the bag. Small solid-propellant inflators came to the rescue in the 1970s.
The airbag's inflation system contains sodium azide (NaN3) which reacts with potassium
nitrate (KNO3) to produce nitrogen gas. Hot blasts of nitrogen inflate the airbag. The
inflation system is like a solid rocket booster. The airbag system ignites a solid propellant,
which burns rapidly to create a large volume of gas to inflate the bag. The bag then literally
bursts from its storage site at up to 200 mph (322 kph) faster than the blink of an eye. A
second later, the gas quickly dissipates through tiny holes in the bag, thus deflating the bag.
Ideally, the body of the driver (or passenger) should not hit the airbag while it is still
inflating. In order for the airbag to cushion the head and torso with air for maximum
protection, the airbag must begin to deflate (i.e., decrease its internal pressure) by the time the
body hits it. Otherwise, the high internal pressure of the airbag would create a surface as hard
as a stone. Even though the whole process happens in only hundred milli-seconds, the
additional time is enough to help prevent serious injury. The powdery substance released
from the airbag is regular cornstarch or talcum powder, which is used by the airbag
manufacturers to keep the bags lubricated while they're in storage.

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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

CHEMICAL REACTIONS:
Airbag systems contain a mixture of sodium azide (NaN3), KNO3, and SiO2. A typical driverside airbag contains approximately 50-80 g of NaN3, with the larger passenger-side airbag
containing about 250 g. The particle size of NaN 3 and KNO3 must be between 10 and 20
microns and SiO2 must be between 5 and 10 microns. Within 40 milliseconds of impact, all
these components react in three separate reactions and produce nitrogen gas. The reactions
are as follows.
(1) 2 NaN3 2 Na + 3 N2 (g)
(2) 10 Na + 2 KNO3 K2O + 5 Na2O + N2 (g)
(3) K2O + Na2O + 2 SiO2 K2O3Si + Na2O3Si (silicate glass)
The first reaction is the decomposition of NaN3 at about 300C using an electric impulse to
give Na metal and N2 gas. Since Na metal is highly reactive, the KNO 3 and SiO2 react and
remove it, in turn producing more N2 gas. Less hygroscopic KNO3 is used since absorbed
moisture can de-sensitize the system and cause the reaction to fail. The final reaction is used
to eliminate the K2O and Na2O produced in the previous reactions because the metal oxides
are highly reactive. These products react with SiO2 to produce a silicate glass which is a
harmless and stable compound.

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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

ANALYSIS OF CRASH SENSORS [2]

Several concepts have been implemented in crash sensors for air bags. Each sensing concept
is based on the measurement of a physical variable or the interpretation of a measured signal.
Signals include speed change or damage and acceleration measured at various locations of a
vehicle. Regardless of the selected approach for crash sensing, potential solutions must
satisfy two criteria:
1) The selected measure correlates well with crash severity;
2) The selected measure can reflect crash severity in advance and thus establish a predictive
indicator.
Among the crash sensing methods most notably are approaches that rely on the detection of
speed change and acceleration-based signal processing for frontal air bag systems. In terms of
the physical construction of actual sensing devices used in air bag systems, crash sensors can
be classified into two basic categories:
(a) Mechanical (b) Electronic.
Many sensors in various configurations fall into the first category, despite their distinct
appearance and functional principles. These sensors contain a sensing mass, which moves
when vehicle is involved in a collision. If the sensing mass travels beyond a certain limit, it
results in a mechanism release or a circuit closure, thus triggering the crash sensor. Sensors in
the second category contain a transducer that generates a crash signal, and electronic circuitry
that processes the generated signal. The functioning principles of these devices are analyzed
further.
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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

A. Mechanical Crash Sensor

There are several types of mechanical crash sensors; some rely on electrical or magnetic
phenomena to operate while others are purely based on mechanical mechanisms. The term,
mechanical, refers to a common characteristic of these sensors, in which a crash is
indicated by monitoring the motion of a sensing mass.
1) Crash Sensor with Damping: One type of widely used sensors for air bag systems in the
late 1980s and early 1990s is the so-called ball-in-tube sensor. The operation of this sensor
depends on the motion of a ball contained in a tube. A magnet situated at one end of the
sensor attracts the ball toward that end of the tube. Under regular driving or braking
conditions or even in minor collisions, the force of magnetic attraction prevents the ball from
moving. When a collision occurs, the ball breaks away from its resting position. If the impact
is sufficiently strong and lasts long enough for the ball to move to the contacts at the opposite
end of the sensor, the gold-plated ball bridges the two contacts and closes an electrical circuit.
When the ball moves along the tube, the air inside the sensor flows through the clearance
between the ball and the tube. The airflow
generates an aerodynamic drag force that dampens the balls motion. The magnitude of the
damping force depends primarily on the speed of the ball and the tightness of the clearance.
Other factors, such as the amount of air and the pressure and temperature inside the sensor,
also affect the damping phenomenon.

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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

2) Spring-Mass Sensor: Another commonly used crash sensor is the so-called Rolamite
sensor.
A Rolamite is a mechanical device, consisting of a roller suspended within a tensioned band.
As a result the roller is free to translate with little friction or hysteresis. This device was
developed at Sandia National Laboratories. The rolamite, and similar macro-mechanical
devices were used in airbags until the mid-1990s when they were universally replaced with
MEMS. Held in place by a metallic band spring, the cylindrical roller rests against the stop
post during a vehicles normal operation. In the event of a substantial collision, the roller
overcomes the spring force and rotates forward. If the impact is severe enough, a moving
contact on the metallic band touches a fixed contact and closes a circuit. Unlike the ball-intube sensor, there is no damping force involved in the roller motion of a Rolamite sensor. The
sensitivity of a Rolamite sensor is controlled by two parameters: (a) the distance to trigger
(b) the magnitude of the spring force.
The spring force, sometimes called the biasing force or the bias is usually given in a ratio of
the bias force to the weight of the sensing mass. The defining characteristic of the Rolamite
sensor is the combination of a sensing mass and a bias spring. The configuration of
components in spring-mass sensors can be quite diverse.

FUTURE OF AIRBAGS
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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

The auto industry, 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). Until recently, most of the strides made in auto
safety were in front and rear impacts, even though 40 percent of all serious injuries from
accidents are the result of side impacts, and 30 percent of all accidents are side-impact
collisions. Many carmakers have responded to these statistics by beefing up doors, door
frames, floor and roof sections. But cars that currently offer side airbags represent the new
wave of occupant protection. Engineers say that designing effective side air bag is much more
difficult than designing front air bags. This is because much of the energy from a front-impact
collision is absorbed by the bumper, hood and engine, and it takes almost 30 to 40
milliseconds before it reaches the car's occupant. In a side impact, only a relatively thin door
and a few inches separate the occupant from another vehicle. This means that door-mounted
side air bags must begin deploying in mere 5 or 6 milliseconds! Volvo engineers
experimented with different ways of mounting side airbags and chose seat-back installation
as it protects passengers of all sizes regardless of how the seat is positioned. These airbags
are designed to reduce the risk of injury to the pelvic and lower abdomen regions. This
arrangement allows them to place a triggering mechanical sensor on the sides of the seat
cushions under the driver and front passenger. This prevents the airbag on the undamaged
side of the car from inflating. Installing the entire airbag package in the seat-back also offers
the advantage of preventing unnecessary deployments that might be caused by collisions with
pedestrians or bicycles. It takes a collision of about 12 mph 19 kph) to trigger side airbags.
BMW engineers have chosen door-mounted airbags. The door has more space, allowing for a
bigger bag that provides more coverage. Another option for head protection in side impacts is
the curtain airbag. Also under development is the head air bag that looks a little like a big
sausage and unlike other air bags, is designed to stay inflated for about 5 seconds to offer
protection against second or third impacts. All of this makes it pretty clear that the science of
airbags is still new and under rapid development. You can expect many advances in this field
as designers come up with new ideas and learn from real-world crash data.

DISARMING AIRBAGS
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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

1. Turn the ignition switch to OFF.

2. At the central junction box (CJB), located below the instrument panel, remove the cover
and the restraints control module (RCM) fuse F60 (7.5A) from the CJB.
3. Turn the ignition ON and visually monitor the air bag indicator for at least 30 seconds. The
air bag indicator will remain lit continuously (no flashing) if the correct RCM fuse has been
removed. If the air bag indicator does not remain lit continuously, remove the correct RCM
fuse before proceeding.
4. Disconnect the battery ground cable and wait at least one minute.
5. Remove the driver air bag module from the vehicle.
6. Install a driver air bag simulator to the harness side of the driver air bag connector.
7. Remove the instrument panel.
8. Disconnect the passenger air bag electrical connector.
9. Install a passenger air bag simulator to the harness side of the passenger air bag connector.
10. Disconnect the driver side air bag connector beneath the driver seat.
11. Install a side air bag simulator to the harness side of the driver side air bag and connector.
12. Install the RCM fuse F60 (7.5A) to the CJB.
13. Reconnect the battery ground cable.

REFERENCES
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AIRBAGS: A SAFETY RESRTRAINT SYSTEM OF AN AUTOMOBILE

[1] SMART AUTOMOTIVE AIRBAGS:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION AND

TRACKING,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO.1,
JANUARY
2007 by Michael E. Farmer, Senior Member, IEEE, and Anil K. Jain, Fellow, IEEE.
-A. K. Jain and C. Dorai, Practicing vision: Integration, evaluation and
applications,
Pattern Recognit., vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 183196, 1997.
-http://www.highwaysafety.org/safety_facts/qanda/airbags.htm
[2] A TREATISE ON CRASH SENSING FOR AUTOMOTIVE AIRBAG SYSTEMS
IEEE /ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 7, NO. 2, JUNE 2002 by
Ching-Yao Chan .
-C. Chan, Sensor design for automotive air bag systems: Design methods and criteria,
Automation, Vol 44-2, pp. 327334.
-D. M. Merhar, Piezoelectric vehicle impact sensor, U.S. Patent 3 701 903, Oct. 31,
1972.
-U. Brede, Electronic sensor for triggering safety devices during the crash of vehicles,
U.S.
patent 3 870 894, Mar. 11, 1975
-A. Hart., Application of an electronic accelerometer for a single point sensing air bag
electronic control unit, in Proc. Sensor Expo, 1991, 204C-1.
-D. S. Breed, Vehicle crush zone sensor, U.S. Patent 4 995 639, Feb. 26, 1991.
-L. E. Bell, Crash sensing switch, U.S. Patent 3 688 063, Apr. 29, 1972.
-S. J. Anderson, Theory of magnetically damped crash sensor: calibration and
testability,,
SAE Paper 910
[3] www.howstuffworks.com/airbags

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