Optimization of Passenger Airbags Using Occupant Simulation

Increasing demand to equip vehicles with airbags in relatively short time is straining restraint engineering resources of OEMs and suppliers. To meet this demand, the time to develop the airbag systems should be minimized, without any compromise to their occupant protection performance. Among the various components that go into an airbag, the design and development of the gas generator is the most time consuming. Usage of one gas generator in a group of cars will cut down on the module development time. Therefore, the possibility of differentiating the inflators based on the severity of crash pulse was investigated. The usefulness of computer simulation software to obtain a good starting system was also evaluated.

This paper outlines the procedure followed in identifying the optimum passenger side inflatable restraint system for a group of vehicles. The simulation and sled test matrices used towards this end are discussed and the results compared.