The development of an advanced airbag concept

Johansson, Lennart; Billig, Jan; Mellander, Hugo; Werner, Bernd; Hora, Peter

Affiliations

²Bayern Chemie GmbH

Abstract

Interaction between the head of the driver and the steering wheel may cause facial injuries, especially in high speed accidents.

Air cushion technology provides the means of distributing and reducing the inertia forces acting on the head and the face.

This paper describes the development of an airbag system, including the electrical sensor which is integrated in the steering wheel, and it focuses on the problems of positioning the sensor in the steering wheel.

Information from necessary sensor testing, both on rough roads and in crash conditions, is presented.

The improvements which are achieved, in terms of reduced violence to the face, have also been assessed experimentally by using a test dummy with a load sensing face.

Cited Works (2)

Year	Entry
1985	Kirchoff GF, Carr RW, Wheelwright RJ, Adams GV. Advanced concepts for driver air cushion systems. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles (ESV). July 1-4, 1985; Oxford, England.332-337. SAE 856050.
1987	Kobayashi S, Honda K, Shitanoki K. Reliability considerations in the design of an air bag system. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles (ESV). May 12-15, 1987; Washington, DC.597-602.

Cited By (2)

Year	Entry
1991	Kozyreff M, Schaper D. A new compact european driver airbag system. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles (ESV). November 4-7, 1991; Paris, France.1176-1180.
2005	Mellander H. Interior Frontal Crash Protection for Passenger Cars At High Delta-V: Possibilities and Limitations [PhD thesis]. Cranfield University; March 2005.