BotPower

Not many people know that airbags are actually not a new concept, and some people may be astounded to realise the concept has been around for over 60 years. The first patent on an inflatable crash-landing device for aeroplanes was filed during World War 2. In the 1980s, the first commercial airbags were a safety feature in motorcars.

To date, statistics reveal that airbags reduce the chance of dying in a square anterior smash by as much as 30 percent. These days there are also door-mounted side and seat-mounted airbags. In point of fact, some motorcars go way beyond just having twin airbags, and instead have 6 to 8 airbags.

An airbag’s task is to decelerate the forward movement of the driver in just a fraction of a second. An airbag can achieve this task in 3 steps:

• The airbag itself is composed of a slim, nylon that’s packed inside the dashboard or steering wheel and, nowadays, the door or seat
• The sensor is the gadget that tells the airbag to expand. Ballooning happens when there’s a smash force equal to running into a wall at 16 to 24 km an hour. A mechanical switch is flipped when there is a weight movement that closes an electric contact, notifying the sensors that a crash has taken place. The detectors obtain data from an accelerometer that’s part of a microchip
• The airbag’s expansion system mixes sodium azide (NaN3) with potassium nitrate (KNO3) to make nitrogen gas. Hot gusts of the gas balloon the airbag

Because of the incredibly fast deployment of an air bag, it’s a safety requirement that the driver and passenger sit in an upright position leaving a safe space between their face and the dashboard / steering wheel - this sets aside time for the bag to expand while the passenger/driver are being pushed forwards by the affect of the crash.