A Look at How Airbags Help Protect Your Body in an Impact
Not many individuals know that the idea of air bags – a soft shock absorber to impact against in a smash – has been around for decades. The first patent on an inflatable crash-landing device for airplanes was submitted during World War II. In the 80s, the very first commercial airbags were present in motorcars.
Up to the present day, statistics reveal that air bags cut back the possibility of death in a direct anterior crash by around 30 percent. These days there are also seat mounted and door-mounted side air bags. As a matter of fact, some automobiles go way beyond only having two airbags, and alternatively have six to eight airbags.
The job of an air bag is to ease the passenger/driver’s advanced motion as evenly as possible in only a fraction of a second. There are three components to an air bag that help execute this feat:
- The bag is composed of a slim, nylon fabric that’s packed into the steering wheel or dashboard and, nowadays, the seat or door
- The detector is the gadget that tells the airbag to balloon. Expansion occurs when there’s a crash force equating to running into a brick wall at 16 to 24 km per hour. A mechanical switch is thrown when there is a weight movement that closes an electric contact, informing the sensors that a crash has occurred. The detectors receive data from an accelerometer built into a silicon chip
- The airbag’s inflation system fuses sodium azide with potassium nitrate to develop nitrogen gas. Hot eruptions of the nitrogen inflate the air bag
Because of the very fast deployment of an air bag, it’s a safety requirement that the driver and passenger sit in the seat with a straight back providing a reasonable space between their face and the steering wheel / dashboard – this allows time for the bag to balloon while they are being thrust forward by the shock of the crash.
