Research on a new airbag in the seat back of vehicle

Abstract

This paper studies a newly patented rear passenger airbag which installed in the seatback to protect the passengers sitting behind it during the frontal crashes. The airbag is packaged in the front row seatback and deployed rearward to cover the head and the chest to reduce the injuries on the passenger at the second row behind the front row of the seat. A CAE model is assembled with front seat, rear passenger airbag, rear dummy, rear seat and the seat belt. A series of the parameters of the rear passenger airbag including the size, shape, installation position, firing time, front seatback angle, belted and unbelted, have been analyzed. It is found that rear passenger airbag can effectively reduce rear dummy injuries especially in the head, neck, and chest areas in the event of frontal crashes with belted or unbelted conditions. Since the rear passenger airbag is installed in the front seatback, the seatback angle will affect rear passenger airbag deployment direction, thus it may not cover the head and the chest when the seatback angles are at the extreme angles (full up or full down). In these positions, the seatback angle sensor is suggested to turn off the rear passenger airbag. When the seatback angle is in between two extreme angles, the rear passenger airbag is designed in the way that the rear passenger airbag surface will mostly match the profile of the rear dummy in order to protect the dummy well. © Springer-Verlag 2013.