United States Department of Transportation
i
Air Bag Technology in Light Passenger Vehicles
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1999-10-26
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[PDF-647.45 KB]
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Abstract:In December 1997, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sent an information request to nine automobile manufacturers requesting detailed technical information on the current industry practice on air bag technologies, and how air bag design and performance characteristics had evolved through the 1990's. The manufacturers provided the agency with the requested data, much of which was proprietary and confidential. The data included information on MY 1990 through MY 1998 vehicles. This report uses those data, as well as other available information, to illustrate the general trends in air bag design and performance characteristics. It also uses data from static and dynamic tests of various air bags and an assessment of air bag performance in terms of injury measures made on dummies representing occupants under low speed and high speed conditions. It also discusses the results of investigations of real world crashes by NHTSA’s Special Crash Investigations office. The report is only intended to provide an overview of the trends in air bag characteristics and design changes. The limited analyses presented in this report are not intended to be a comprehensive report on the projected safety performance of the past, present, or future vehicle fleet. Section 1 of the report gives the background which led to the information request. Section 2 provides a summary of various advanced air-bag related technologies that are actively being considered by the manufacturers. Additionally, a brief description of air bag design changes and air bag performance measures are given for both driver and passenger air bags. Section 3 discusses general trends, including a detailed analysis of inflator output trends over time. Section 4 gives a discussion of the static and dynamic test results from air bag aggressivity and vehicle crash tests conducted by the agency. Section 5 provides a discussion of the trends in real world fatalities due to air bags. Section 6 gives a summary of the findings. The agency’s analyses of the data show some of the ways in which air bag technology is evolving. There have been numerous changes in air bag design both on the driver side and the passenger side. Some of the changes in air bag design reduce their aggressivity, an issue to which NHTSA has given a great deal of attention. Since the problem of air bag deaths first emerged, NHTSA has taken a number of steps to address the problem. In late November 1996, the agency announced that it would be implementing a comprehensive plan of rulemaking and other actions (e.g., consumer education) addressing the adverse effects of air bags. Recognizing that a relatively long period of lead time is required to make some types of significant design changes to air bags, the agency's comprehensive plan called for both interim and longer-term solutions. The interim solutions included temporary adjustments in Standard No. 208's performance requirements to ensure that the vehicle manufacturers had maximum flexibility to address quickly the risks from air bags. One such change was to permit manufacturers to certify their vehicles to an unbelted sled test option instead of the unbelted 30 mph rigid barrier test. This facilitated efforts of the manufacturers to make quick design changes to their air bags, such as reducing inflator power.
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