Since airbags have become standard equipment on passenger cars in the U.S., a variety of organizations have reported on the effectiveness of airbags in saving occupant lives and reducing serious injuries during frontal crashes. However, there have also been numerous reports of serious injuries to occupants caused by airbag deployment. As a result, airbag deployment force is now an issue of tremendous concern. These problems primarily occur with outof- position occupants. IS0 has proposed various test methods for evaluating the effects of airbag deployment force on out-of-position occupants. This paper presents a test method for evaluating airbag deployment force at the airbag component level.