An Examination of the Technology that Makes Airbags Deploy so Fast

It’s a little known fact that airbags are actually not a recent concept, and some may be amazed to realise the concept has been in existence for over 6 decades. The first patent on an air bag for air planes was submitted during World War II. In the 1980s, the first commercial airbags appeared in vehicles.

Right up to today, stats show that air bags cut the possibility 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. As a matter of fact, some automobiles go way further than simply having dual air bags, and alternatively have 6 to 8 airbags.

The task of an air bag is to decelerate the passenger’s forward motion as smoothly as possible in only a fraction of a second. There are 3 parts to an airbag that help execute this goal:

The bag is made of a slim, nylon fabric, which is compressed into the dashboard or steering wheel and, more recently, the door or seat
The detector is the device that orders the airbag to balloon. Ballooning happens when there’s a smash force equal to running into a brick wall at around 24 km per hour. A switch is thrown when there is a mass shift that cuts off an electrical contact, instructing the detectors that a smash has occurred. The sensors get data from an accelerometer built into a micro chip
The bag’s expansion facility mixes sodium azide (NaN3) with potassium nitrate (KNO3) to develop nitrogen gas. Hot gusts of the nitrogen inflate the airbag

Because of the incredibly fast expansion of an air bag, it’s a safety requirement that the driver and passenger sit in the seat with a straight back providing a safe space between the steering wheel / dashboard and their face - this provides time for the airbag to balloon while they are being pushed forward by the shock of the accident.

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