INVESTIGATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF LATERAL SIDE IMPACT AGAINST CURBSTONES ON SIDE AIRBAG SENSING

With a short deformation zone within the lateral zone of a vehicle great demands are made to the control units and sensors of the side airbag systems according to the reaction time until activation. For further development of those systems and keeping the possibility of erroneous activation low these airbag systems are tested in several impacts that cause airbag activations and in so-called misuse tests. One requirement for non-activation is thereby to hit a curbstone with a vehicle. Since there is only little load for the occupants to expect an activation of the sidebag is not necessary. Executing sled crash tests the Institut für Kraftfahrwesen Aachen (ika) simulates realistically those impact situations. Beside different variations of the boundary test conditions further information referring the sensors positions and signal curves for tuning of the airbag electronics are to determine.