Abstract: The purpose of this experiment is to test the effectiveness of airbags in various sizes and materials.

Principles of acceleration and applied force will be used to determine the deceleration caused by the airbag in a collision. While foil was the better material over paper and plastic, the desirable size was not identified because of its surface area or volume, but by the percentage of length that was left after the collision.

Introduction

This experiment will test the effectiveness of airbags. The question that will be researched is: What effect does the alteration in material and size of airbags have on their ability to provide a small deceleration? The Aim of the experiment is to generate a general inference that can improve the effectiveness of airbags in terms of providing an occupant with as slow of a deceleration as possible. After the experiment was conducted, a hypothesis was generated that aids in the predicting of further outcomes. It relies on a basic formula for final velocity: . Because the initial and final velocity should remain or  constant throughout the investigation, the only variable that can be changed to alter the acceleration is displacement. To create a smaller acceleration, the displacement must be as long as possible. This is the Hypothesis: As the displacement of the human increases after the collision of the car, the slower the deceleration will be (i.e. the closer the decelerations magnitude will be to zero).

Design of Investigation
Because the effectiveness of airbags is to be tested, the airbag is the only variable that will be changed the dependant variable. Realistically, the shape of the bag should not be altered; however, the size of the airbag and the material it is made from can, and will, be changed. These will be the manipulated variables: size and material. The effectiveness of the airbag will be apparent according to how much the airbag compresses when it absorbs impact from the human. The experiment will involve a simulated car crash. If we are to test the effectiveness of airbags accurately, we must eliminate all other aspects (to as much of an extent as possible) that may have an effect on the results. To eliminate friction, the car will be made of Lego, using specially designed wheels that allow the car to roll with minimum hindrances caused by friction. The car will roll down a ramp and crash into a solid block,

also made of Lego. Because Lego bricks are made of hard plastic, they will absorb very little force in a collision, so they are an ideal material. Because the wheels of the car have a very thin tread, it will be hard to control the cars path. To solve this problem, the car will roll along Lego tracks designed to bear the wheels that are being used A slope will be constructed for a car to roll down, and designed in such a way that, even if it is dismantled, it can be reassembled identically. The car will also have a track attached to its top, upon which a smaller object on wheels will be placed this is the human in the experiment. The front of the car will have a vertical accessory attached, to act as a barrier that the airbag will sit against. The human will sit behind the airbag on its rails, sitting against the bags posterior face. When the car collides with the block, momentum will keep acting upon the human until it is stopped by the airbag. Certain assumptions will be made that allow results to be accomplished easily. For example, it is assumed that there is no wind resistance acting on the car when it moves; neither will there be any friction. For efficiencys sake, the airbags weight will not be used to determine a total mass of the vehicle. The displacement for the acceleration of the car will only be as long as the track on an incline. As soon as the track begins to level out, it will be assumed that the car maintains a constant speed until impact. All forces will be absorbed by the airbag alone. The ultimate purpose of the experiment is to calculate the deceleration of the human caused by the airbag. Because time can be an ambiguous component to measure, it will not be used in the calculations. The only formula for acceleration that does not use time is or . So, the velocity of the human just before it is stopped by the airbag (initial velocity), the final velocity (0) and the displacement of the human in relation to the top surface of the car need to be determined.

Initial Velocity Essentially, the initial velocity of the human will be the maximum velocity of the car before it collides with the block. To find the final velocity of the car we need to determine how much force is applied to the car and then the acceleration that is resulted.

or .

Now that the acceleration has been determined, the distance that the car accelerates for must be determined so that the cars final velocity (the humans initial velocity) can be determined. or or . Displacement The displacement of the human in relation to the top of the car can be calculated by taking the airbags length after the collision from its original length. Formulation of calculation 

Airbags that are completely compressed are invalid to the investigation because a displacement cannot be measured. Therefore is not applicable to calculate an acceleration in these instances.

Method of Experiment
The ramp is constructed using a box and a narrow wooden sheet; the box is placed against a flat surface perpendicular to the ground and the wood is positioned so that it touches the top edge of the box opposite the surface, the surface itself and the ground. This design allows the ramp to be constructed identically each time it is assembled, as long as the same plank of wood and box is used (the angle of elevation of the ramp was 13o and the length of track was 1150mm). The track is then taped to the ramp in a straight line down the centre, positioned 80mm away from the top of the plank. For stability, Lego blocks are placed over the joints in the track pieces and a under the curve at the bottom. The Lego block is connected to the lower end of the track; during testing, one must apply pressure on the block so that it does not move in the collision. The airbags, which take the form of origami water bombs, are only blown up just before they are tested so as to keep them in the best condition possible. The length of the airbag (the distance from the edge of face that will sit against the front tray of the car to the edge of the face that will touch the human) is measured before it is attached to the front of the human using a loop of tape. The human is then placed on the top of the car with the airbag resting against the car. A Lego brick at the top of the track acts as a buffer for the car to be pushed against as a guide, ensuring that the car travels the same distance in every test. When all is set the car is released. After the collision the new length of the airbag is carefully measured, then squeezed until it has compacted entirely. If the airbag

cannot be squeezed any further, it means that it did not have enough resistance to stop the human, and so it is counted as an invalid result. If a test is valid then the displacement will be calculated by taking the new length of the airbag away from the original.

Proceedings of the Experiment

Day 1 All materials that were needed to construct the experiment were gathered: Lego, video camera, tape, measuring equipment (calculator, ruler and tape measure, protractor ands electronic scales) and ramp components. The main aim of the lesson was to refine the controlled aspects in the experiment so that results would be valid and appropriate to the investigation. One particular problem arose straight away: it was apparent that, even without a proper test, the cars final momentum would be too great. If the cars impact at the end of the track is too strong, then the momentum transferred to the human will crush all of the airbags entirely, so any resulting data would be invalid. There are two factors that make up momentum: mass and velocity. Therefore, the magnitude of these two components (that is, the final velocity of the car before impact and the amount of net force applied to it) must be decreased. An obvious way to achieve this is, of course, to lessen the weight of the car by removing unnecessary Lego blocks. However, a large percentage of the vehicles weight was caused by the human itself. It had been assumed that a large amount of force would be needed to compress the airbags, so the human was designed to carry heavy materials such as lead. However, by the end of the first day of refinement, it was apparent that extra weight would be unnecessary. Another problem about the human was its effectiveness as a sliding mechanism. Smooth Lego pieces were attached to its underside to decrease friction; however there seemed to be an unnecessarily large normal force involved between the human and the side barriers that controlled the humans movement in the collision. The design of the ramp was also a major issue concerning the momentum of the vehicle. The incline was initially too steep, resulting in an unnecessarily large amount of net force acting upon the car. The excessive length of track also provided the car with a longer time to accelerate, and as stated by many scientific equations, the time of acceleration can significantly influence the final velocity. An additional problem with the cars design was that its front tray was only large enough to hold small airbags, therefore limiting the range of results. Overall, the first day of refinement revealed many faults in the design of the experiment. Day 2 and 3

Major changes were made to the overall design of the experiment. The car was completely remodelled, now with a larger tray and a greater distance between its two sets of wheels (previously the car had derailed after the collision because closeness of the wheels made it easy to lose balance). The human was also redesigned: it was a solid Lego block, now that it did not need to hold additional weight, and was attached to a pair of wheels similar to those of the car. A track piece was also placed on the top of the car for the human to roll along, and this technique dramatically decreased the friction between the human and the car. An efficient ramp was designed so that could be reassembled, and the track was made an appropriate length. With the car lighter and the ramp at a shallow incline, the experiment could now run, and provide effective results. At the end of day 3, all measurements were taken so that they could be eventually used to calculate deceleration: ramp incline and track length. Day 4 This was the first day of testing, the preliminary experiment. It involved the testing of airbags made of different materials (aluminium foil, paper and soft plastic) and from two different sized sheets (100mm2 and 200mm2). The aim of these tests was to determine which material generally causes the smallest deceleration. Even without analysing results it was obvious from observation that foil was the best material. Day 5 Now that the preliminary trials had been completed, different sized airbags made from the optimum material should be tested. After testing airbags made from 50mm2, 1500mm2, 250mm2 and 300mm2, it was apparent that the biggest sized airbag worked the best. Day 6 This was the final day of testing. For no particular reason an airbag made from a 175mm2 was tested. It was found to have caused the smallest acceleration

Discussion
The experiment investigated two variables: material and size. In a real life situation, the material of an airbag does not play a significant role in the protection of a human, but rather the air pressure inside the bag. However, the plasticity or elasticity of an object may determine (to an extent) whether or not a humans head is more likely to bounce back off the airbag or whether its force will be absorbed. Three materials were tested in the experiment. An ideal material would be a plastic material because it does not try to retain its original shape after it is compressed. If an airbag was made of an elastic material, then it would provide more resistance against any force acting on it, therefore shortening its displacement before it is stopped. This is because, like many materials, the bond between atoms is stretched when it is pulled out

of shape. Like a spring, the atoms have a tendency to recoil back to their original shape when no forces are acting on it. If an object has less distance to stop in, its deceleration will be larger, and this is not desirable. A plastic object is preferable because it moulds to the shape of the object being forced upon it. This is because these materials have a particular molecular make up that allows the atoms to slide around without their atomic bond being weakened. Plastic materials compress with less resistance; this will allow the object a longer distance to slow down, thereby decreasing their deceleration rate. The first material, paper, may have seemed like a good material at first due to its flexibility. However, fashioning a sheet of paper into 3-dimensional object by folding tends to increase the durability of the paper. In the experiment, the paper airbags were too strong and so they were not able to compress to a great extent due to its elasticity. Paper is not a suitable material because it is made of many tight, strong cellulose fibres The second material that was tested was the synthetic material used to make plastic bags. With plastic being thinner than paper, it could be inferred that perhaps this type of airbag would be more effective. However, soft plastic has a tendency to be unmalleable, and this made the process of folding the bags very difficult. In fact, the plastic airbags were not even able to hold their shape properly when they were tested. This is reflective of plastics inefficiency as a malleable material due to its dense molecular structure. Aluminium foil was the third material that was experimented on, and it was the most effective at providing a large displacement for the human to slow down in. Metals are malleable and plastic because of their atoms can move around without their bond between other atoms being weakened. Once the best material had been identified, a second trial was conducted using foil airbags of different. The purpose of this test was to establish any trends concerning the size of the airbag and its effectiveness at providing a considerably low deceleration. After the first day of testing it seemed apparent that the bigger the airbag, the slower the deceleration it would cause because, inferentially, it provided a longer potential displacement. However, to make sure that this inference was correct (and because only three results were currently relevant) one more airbag was tested, made from a sheet half way between the smallest airbag that provided a valid result (made from a 200mm2 sheet) and the biggest airbag that compressed entirely (made from a 150mm2 sheet). It was found that this new size of 175mm2 was the new best size, rather than the 300mm2 airbag. This completely changed the hypothesis of the experiment because now the results did not even follow a rough linear trend anymore. To find a new hypothesis the valid information was interpreted in many ways, such as surface area and volume change. However it was not until the percentage of airbag compressed was calculated that any trend was apparent. The most affective airbag that is, the bag that causes the smallest deceleration due to the larger displacement of the human was made from a 175mm2 sheet of foil. It also had the largest compression of its original length percentage. The least effective airbag the bag that caused the greatest deceleration due to the smaller displacement of the car was made from a 200mm2 sheet of foil, and had the smallest percentage of compression of its original length. Analysing the other two results, it was discovered that the larger the percentage of compression of the original length of the airbag, the slower the deceleration

it caused. In actual fact, the deceleration may not be dependent on this percentage; however it is hard to ignore the correlation in the four points that were recorded. But what caused this certain trend? It is hard to tell from the small number of valid results, however it should be noted that the surface area of any face (the bags were designed to have a roughly cubic shape) on most effective airbag was roughly equal to the surface area of the front face of the human. When the size of the airbag and the deceleration it causes are placed on a graph this result seems to be close to the x-intercept of a rough parabola. Therefore, it can be inferred that, the closer the surface area of one face on an airbag (assuming the airbag is a cube) is to the front surfaces area of the object colliding with it, the lower the deceleration will be. This is a very bold statement, but it roughly correlated with the data recorded and is a logical conclusion to make.

Conclusion
Several conclusions can be drawn from this experiment. Firstly, there is considerable correlation between the effectiveness of the airbag and how much had compressed by; that is, the greater the percentage of compression from the original length of an airbag, the smaller the deceleration will be. However, this would be as a sole conclusion, because the percentage of compression is a dependant variable, and cannot be controlled. Therefore, in conjunction with this statement another inference can be made from the experiment: the closer the surface area of one face of a cubic airbag is to the surface area of the face colliding with it, the slower the deceleration will be. This clearly satisfies the Aim of the experiment, which was to formulate a general inference that could be used to increase the effectiveness of airbags. The Aim of this experiment was not very specific, and did not strive to generate equations or other data that would provide a clear indication of what an ideal airbag should be like. This is due to several reasons. Although great measures were taken to ensure that other variables would not have an effect on the results, the results still contained some inaccuracy. As stated earlier, assumptions had to be made so that results could be recorded efficiently. In actual fact, the ramp was most likely not set up in the exact same way each day, or the track positioned identically; there was still friction occurring when the car rolled down the hill; measurements probably contained small inaccuracies due to human error; not all of the force in the collision would have been absorbed by the airbag; the acceleration was not calculated as accurately as it could have been. In actual fact, there were many small inaccuracies that would alter the results slightly. It should also be noted that the weight of the human was not proportional to the weight of the car, so this test would be invalid if applies to real life. Furthermore, only a small amount of valid results were recorded, and this potentially hindered insight and the ability to draw conclusions somewhat. Ultimately, the experiment can only be described as a preliminary test, the purpose of which being to develop ideologies that would become useful if further investigation was conducted on the efficiency of airbags.