Curtain airbag design offers protection in side crash and it plays a critical role in safety of the vehicle. Curtain airbag provides protection to the occupant in many impact events like frontal offset, side barrier, and side pole and rollover condition. For a vehicle to be safe for any side impact condition, the curtain airbag should deploy and take its final shape before any injury happens to the occupant.
During deployment, it is important that the airbag chooses a path of minimum resistance and does not get entangled in interior trims. In reality, the trims always do obstruct the path of airbag deployment in some way.
Hence, special care has to be taken care for designing areas surrounding curtain like providing hinges, deflector components etc. to avoid being caught. There are about ten different factors on this deployment is dependent upon.
This paper discusses these factors and the effect of the factors on the trims and airbag development. Proper care needs to be taken while designing the airbag mounting locations and the protrusions from the trims.