Introduction
In most cars today you will find an airbag. The airbag has three main parts. First the bag, which is made of a thin nylon fabric, holds the chemicals and sensors and folds into the steering wheel or the dashboard. The electronic components contain a sensor that detects a collision force equal to running into a brick wall at about 10-15 mph and an igniter that detonates the first chemical reaction. The third component contains NaN3, KNO3 and SiO2.
Chemical Reactions Used to Generate the Gas
Inside the airbag is a gas generator containing a mixture of NaN3, KNO3, and SiO2. When the car undergoes a head-on collision, a series of three chemical reactions inside the gas generator produce gas (N2) to fill the airbag and convert
…show more content…
Once this pressure has been determined, the ideal-gas law can be used to calculate the amount of N2 that must be generated to fill the airbag to this pressure. The amount of NaN3 in the gas generator is then carefully chosen to generate this exact amount of N2 gas.
Front air bags are not designed to deploy in side impact, rear impact or rollover crashes. Since air bags deploy only once and deflate quickly after the initial impact, they will not be beneficial during a subsequent collision. Safety belts help reduce the risk of injury in many types of crashes. They help to properly position occupants to maximize the air bag's benefits and they help restrain occupants during the initial and any following collisions.
Airbags involve the extremely rapid, violent deployment of a large object. While airbags can protect a person under the right circumstances, they can also injure or kill.
Some airbag systems may also have an on/off switch, which allows the air bag to be
…show more content…
Roughly speaking, a 14 mi/h (23 km/h) barrier collision is equivalent to striking a parked car of similar size across the full front of each vehicle at about 28 mi/h (45 km/h). This is because the parked car absorbs some of the energy of the crash, and is pushed by the striking vehicle. Unlike crash tests into barriers, real-world crashes typically occur at angles, and the crash forces usually are not evenly distributed across the front of the vehicle. Consequently, the relative speed between a striking and struck vehicle required to deploy the air bag in a real-world crash can be much higher than an equivalent barrier