November
2009
On the Science and Technology Behind Airbags
Not many people know that airbags are not a recent concept, and some people may be amazed to know the design has been in existence for over six decades. The very first patent on an air bag for aeroplanes was submitted during World War Two. During the 1980s, the very first commercial airbags were a safety feature in vehicles.
Right up to today, stats indicate that airbags cut back the possibility of dying in a direct anterior smash by about 30 percent. Now there are also seat mounted and door-mounted side air bags. In point of fact, some automobiles go way beyond merely having dual air bags, and instead have 6 to 8 air bags.
An airbag’s task is to slow the advanced motion of the driver in just a split second. There are 3 parts to an airbag that help accomplish this job:
- The airbag is composed of a thin, nylon that’s folded inside the dashboard or steering wheel and, nowadays, the door or seat
- The detector is the gadget that orders the bag to balloon. Expansion happens when there is a smash force equating to motoring into a brick wall at 10 to 15 miles per hour. A mechanical switch is flipped when there’s a mass movement that closes an electric contact, telling the detectors that a smash has happened. The sensors get information from an accelerometer that’s part of a microprocessor chip
- The airbag’s expansion system reacts sodium azide (NaN3) with potassium nitrate to make nitrogen gas. Hot eruptions of the nitrogen gas inflate the air bag
Because of the superfast expansion of an airbag, it’s a safety requirement that the driver and passenger sit in an upright position leaving a reasonable distance between their face and the steering wheel / dashboard – this sets aside time for the airbag to expand while they are being pushed forward by the impact of the crash.
