Numerical analysis of side airbags deployment in out-of-position situations

Abstract

Side-impact collisions represent the second greatest cause of fatality in motor vehicle accidents. Side-impact airbags have been installed in recent model year vehicle due to its effectiveness in reducing passengers’ injuries and fatality rates. In meeting these requirements, simulations of folding and deploying airbags are very useful and are widely used. The paper presents a simulation method for the deploying airbags using three materials in different working conditions. Finite element analysis is primarily used to evaluate this concept. In these simulations, the gas flow is described by the conservation laws of mass, momentum, and energy. The numerical results indicate that the FE method in this paper is capable of capturing airbag deploying process accurately.