SAFETY AIR-BAGS

SAFETY AIR-BAGS IN CARS

A SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted by

DEEPANSHU PAHUJA

In partial fulfillment for the award of degree

Of

BACHLOR OF TECHNOLOGY

In

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

SIR PADAMPAT SINGHANIA UNIVERSITY, UDAIPUR

APRIL 2013

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BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this project report SAFETY AIR-BAGS IN CARS is the

bonafide work of DEEPANSHU PAHUJA who carried out the seminar work

under my supervision.

(Prof. Naveen Kumar) (Dr. Bhagat Singh)

HEAD SUPERVISOR
Mechanical Engineering Department Assistant Professor
Sir Padampat Singhania University Mechanical Engineering Department
Udaipur Sir Padampat Singhania University
Udaipur

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ABSTRACT

The present topic is about safety airbags in cars. 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
airbag reduces fatality risk to drivers.

Basic function of Air-Bag is to slow the passengers speed to zero with little or
no damage. The Air-Bag has the space between the passenger and the steering
wheel or dash board and a fraction of a second to work with.

Airbag are assemblies consisting of the airbag (made of Nylon), inflator

modules and sensor housing, electrical connectors (Clock spring), airbag
retainer and the cover.

Airbags are subject of serious government and industry research. My seminar

takes you to the history, development and working aspects of airbag.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
LIST OF TABLE
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF SYMBOLS
1. INTRODUCTIO
1.1 General
1.2 Mathematical formulation
1.2.1 Standard Proportions.
1.3 45
1.4 58
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 75
2.1 General

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1. INTRODUCTION

For years, the trusty seat belt provided the sole form of passive restraint in
our cars. There were debated about their safety, especially relating to
children. But over time, most 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.

Air Bags have been under development for many years. The attraction
of a soft pillow to land against in a crash must be very strong the first
patent on an inflatable crash-landing device for airplanes was filed during
World War II. In the 1980s the first commercial air bags appeared in
automobiles.

Since 1988, all new cars have been required to have air bags on both
driver and passenger sides (Light Trucks came under the rule in 1999). To
date, Statistics show that air bags reduce the risk of dying in a direct frontal
crash by 30 percent. Newer than steering Wheel mounted or Dashboard
mounted bags, but not so widely used, are seat-mounted and door mounted
side air-bags. Some experts say that within the next few years, our cars will
go from having dual air bags top having six or even eight air bags. Having
evoked some of the controversy that surrounded seat-belt use in its early
years, air bags are the subject of serious government and industry research
and tests.

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2. THE BASICS OF AIR BAGS

Before looking at specifics, let us review our knowledge on the laws of the
motion. First, we know that moving objects have momentum (the product of
the mass and velocity of an object). Unless an outside force acts on an
object, the object will continue to move in 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 objects 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 cars momentum has changed instantly while the passengers
has 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 air bag wants to do is to slow the passengers speed to zero

with little or no damage. The constraints that it has to work within are
huge. The air bag has the space between the passenger and the steering
wheel or dashboard and a fraction of a second to work with. Even that tiny
amount of space and time is valuable, however, if the system can slow the
passenger evenly rather than forcing an abrupt halt to his or her motion.

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3. DEVELOPMENT OF AIR BAGS

The idea of using a rapidly inflating cushion to prevent crash injuries has a
long history. The first patent on an inflatable crash-landing device for
airplanes was filed during World War II.

Early efforts to adapt the air bag for use in cars bumped up against
prohibitive prices and technical hurdles involving the storage and release of
compressed gas.

- If there was enough room in a car for a gas canister.

- Whether the gas would remain contained at high pressure for the
life of the car.
- How the bag could be made to expand quickly and reliably at a
variety of operating temperatures and without emitting an ear-splitting
bang.

They needed a way to set off a chemical reaction that would produce the
nitrogen that would inflate the bag. Small solid-propellant inflators came to
rescue in the 1970s.

In the early days of auto air bags, experts cautioned that the new device
was to be used in tandem with the seat belt. Seat belts were still completely
necessary because airbags worked only in front-end collisions occurring at
more than 6 Kmph. Only Seat belts could help in side swipes and crashes
(Although side-mounted air bags are becoming more common now), rear
end collisions and secondary impacts. Even as the technology advances, air
bags still are only effective when used with a lap/Shoulder seat belt.

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4. MAIN PARTS OF AIR BAG

There are three main parts of an air bag assembly:

1. Bag
2. Sensor
3. Inflation system

BAG
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
powdery substance released from their sir bag, by the way, is regular cornstarch
or talcum powder, which is used by the air bag manufacturers to keep the bags
pliable and lubricated while theyre in storage.

SENSOR
The sensor is the device that tells the bag to inflate. It works with the
control module to discriminate between crash and non-crash events. These
sensors measure the severity of the impact. Inflation happens when there is
a collision force equal to running into a brick wall at 16 to 24 Km per hour.
They are setup so that sudden negative acceleration will cause the contacts
to close, telling the control module that a crash before airbag deployment.

INFLATION SYSTEM
The air bags inflation system reacts sodium azide(NaN3) with potassium
nitrate (KNO3) to produce large volume of nitrogen gas. Hot Blasts of the
nitrogen inflate the air bag from its storage site up to 322Kmph. A Second
later, the gas quickly dissipates through a tiny holes in the bag, thus
deflating the bag so you can move.

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5. CONSTRUCTION OF AIR BAGS

Airbag are assemblies consisting of the airbag (made of Nylon), inflator
modules and sensor housing, electrical connectors (Clock spring), airbag
retainer and the cover. The drivers side bag is mounted in the center of the
steering wheel as shown in fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Drivers side bag

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6. TYPES OF SENSORS

Ball and Magnet Type Sensor:

Spring and Roller type:

By function, there are 2 types- Impact sensors and safing sensors. The
Forward sensors are located in various locations forward of the passenger
compartment. Some are located inside the fenders, some are on the cowl,
and some are attached to the core support in front of the radiator.

Rear Sensors are also known as safing sensors as their functions is to

determine that a crash has occurred. Rear safing sensors are located in
various locations in the passenger compartment depending on the
manufacturer. Some are integrated with the control/Diagnostic Module.
The Rear safing sensor must close before the forward sensors to avoid
airbag deployment in cases where the impact is not severe enough to cause
deployment. When the vehicle is parked with ignition off deployment is very
unlikely because there is no power to the circuits for deployment this means
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that someone can hit your car and sound the alarm but not deploy the
airbags.

Inflator Assembly:
This is a diagram of a typical inflator assembly behind the steering wheel.

Fig. 4 Inflator assembly

When the control Module activates the airbag assembly, an electric

current is sent to the detonator, which ignites the sodium azide pellets.
When it burns, it releases nitrogen gas very quickly and in large quantities.
This is what inflates the airbag.

Sodium Azide:
Sodium Azide is Rocket fuel. Sodium azide is a solid propellant with a very
high gas generation ratio. It is very stable in this application.
When Sodium azide burns, its major product is nitrogen gas, which makes
up around 78% of the Earths atmosphere. One of the other by-products is
sodium hydroxide. This is commonly known as Lye, which is a caustic
compound. The quantities produced are very small and present a very small
risk of burns. The white powder residue seen after inflation is common
cornstarch, used as lubricant for expansion of the airbag. Testing is
underway with inflators that release argon gas.

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7. WORKING OF AIR BAGS

Air Bags are designed to inflate in frontal or frontal-angle impacts in which

the car strikes an immovable object at more than about 16 Kilometers per
hour or another car at twice that speed. After a collision, sensors sense an
electric current to an igniter system or, in some cases, to the computerized
control unit. This unit evaluates the situation and then sends an electrical
impulse to the igniter system. The electric current heats a filament (wire),
which then ignites a capsule. The Ignited capsule supplies the heat to ignite
gas-generating pellets. In most systems, the pellets are made of sodium
azide and produce nitrogen gas when they burn. In other systems,
pressurized argon gas is used instead. The gas then expands quickly and
inflates the airbag, which then breaks through a plastic cover in the steering
wheel or, the dashboard on the passenger side. The whole process takes
about 0.1 second from the exact moment the crash is detected. The air bag
starts to deflate immediately, venting the harmless gas through holes in the
back of the bag of the through the fabric itself.

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8. MODERN TYPES OF AIR BAGS

1.Curtain Airbags
Curtain airbags are airbags that inflate in front of vehicle windows to provide
passengers better head and neck protection. The curtain airbags are part of
new rollover protection system. Most equipped cars will have vertically
inflating curtain airbags in the headliner trim just above the windows, while
some will have them inflate horizontally from the side pillar between the
doors. In some cases, curtain airbags will deploy in a fraction of a second.

Sensors in the side pillar will measure the force of side-impact Collisions. If
the sensors measure a strong impact, then the curtain airbags will deploy in
a fraction of a second. The curtain airbag will drop straight down over the
windows to keep the occupants heads from striking the window or the
intruding nose of another vehicle.

Fig. 5 Inflatable curtain

The system will use sensors that measure tipping rather than impact.
These sensors send information to a central module, which will determine if
the vehicle is beginning to roll over. If the vehicle is tipping into a roll, the
sensors will deploy the curtain airbag. Stored in the headliner above the
doors, the cells of the inflatable curtains are inflated in less than 25

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thousands of a second in a triggering accident. To avoid stitches from sewing

the bag, its cells are woven on the loom directly from the yarn using
Autolivs one piece-weaving technology. Therefore the bag can remain
inflated for several seconds, which is imperative in roll-over accidents. Cool
gas will keep it inflated for up to six seconds.

Laboratory tests have shown that the so-called Head Injury Criterion
(HIC) can be reduced by approximately 80%. The Inflatable Curtain was
developed in cooperation with Mercedes and Volvo.

Car manufacturers selling car with these as standard equipment are

Alfa Romeo, Audi, BMW and Volvo.

2. Head-Thorax Bag

Fig.6 Head-Thorax Bag

The Head-Thorax Side-Impact Airbag has an extension from the regular

Thorax Bag that protects the head. It was introduced in 1998 and developed
in cooperation with Ford and Renault.

3. Inflatable Tubular Structure (ITS)

The Inflatable Tubular Structure (ITS), the worlds first airbag for head
protection, was introduced on BMW cars. It consists of a unique nylon tube,
installed in the head-liner above the frontal doors that inflates to a diameter
of about 15 centimeters (5 inches).

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Prototype of a Smart Air bag

Fig. 7 Smart Air Bag

The Prototype of smart air bag creates a weak electric field. Antennae located
under fabric or in the seat cushion measure the field and instantly update
the airbag controller about the size and position of the occupant.

When you are involved in a frontal collision somewhere in the

neighborhood of at least 20 kmph, a number of things happen very quickly.
The sudden deceleration of you vehicle causes 2 sensors to send an
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electrical signal; to the diagnostic module. The diagnostic module self tests
to confirm that a crash event is taking place, and then it allows the signal to

Airbag Deployment

Fig. 8 Airbag Deployment

Above is an illustration of a driver side airbag deployment. The first image is

the airbag inflation, the second depicts your contact with the airbag, and the
third is your coming to rest in the seat and the deflation of the airbag. This
all takes place in about 30 milliseconds.

In fact the entire inflation/deflation cycle takes less than second. The
speed of the airbag inflating is around 320 kmph. The vehicle hasnt come
to a stop at this point, nor hopefully have you lost control of it.

1988 is the first model for depowered bags. Unfortunately these are not
standard equipment on all cars.

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11. CONCLUSION

The air bags are of greater importance in todays vehicles since safety of
human life is of prior importance. Since the count of automobiles is
increasing tremendously on our roads, the probability of accidents is also
more. So far a safe riding and for saving the precious life the safety bags
must be implemented. Today it is the prevail age of the high class people
who own high priced cars. Lets hope every automobile manufacturer
implement the same since safety for life is inevitable.

12. BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Wikipedia.com

Howstuffworks.com

Google.com

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