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This paper describes the life-saving mechanism in accidents while a force wheeler drives on the lane. Safety systems in automobile have slowly gained attention over the past decade. Airbags are among the greatest significant products for automotive security, as they have been shown to upsurge passenger safety in a variety of ways. An airbag is an automobile safety device used to save both drivers and passenger’s lives during a collision. The airbag modules contains of an initiator inflator, a pad of textiles, and frame. An airbag's function is to shield occupants during a crash and protect their bodies when they hit interior objects like steering or window, etc. The use of the airbag system reduces the number of injuries by decreasing the force exerted at any point on the body by the steering wheel, Windows and dashboard. Many researches are going to improve the airbag's features. However, the effectiveness of any safety equipment depends on its proper implementation and on certain guidelines to be followed.

Transportation of a large amount of goods and materials to the lunar surface will be an urgent need with the increasing intensive exploration of the moon. The airbag cushioning system is the most prospective one due to its low cost, simple structure, adjustable performance, and well stability, when compared to other types like the soft-landing mechanism and sky crane. The special lunar environment of the thin atmosphere and low gravity calls for new types of the combined airbag. Thus, a new combined airbag structure that can avoid generating a lot of dust during venting was proposed to fit the lunar environment. By proposing an improved deformation assumption of the airbag based on large deformation, as well as considering gas exchange between main and secondary airbags, a novel combined airbag analytical model was put forward. The inflation and cushioning process were calculated and validated through simulation analysis and ground test. The analytical, numerical, and experimental results were in good agreement. Using the analytical model, the lunar landing cushioning process of the combined airbag with different layouts was analyzed, and the optimal layout was determined. Furthermore, parameter effects on the cushioning performance were studied. The results show that: main airbag initial pressure, venting threshold pressure, vent orifice diameter, and secondary airbag volume have a great impact on cushioning performance, while inflation gas temperature has little impact. Notably, the influence law of these parameters is not monotonous.

Flexible pressure sensors are being used widely in sports and human-health monitoring. The knee joint is one of the organs with the highest injury rate while running. By optimizing the structural design of sports pants, the lower limbs can be compressed appropriately to protect the knee joint and improve exercise efficiency. The point of innovation lies in the removable flexible pressure sensors implanted in these leggings developed to monitor the three-dimensional force on the knee in real time. Combined with data analysis, this can provide information to wearers while exercising and to the middle-aged and elderly to prevent knee-strain problems. The experimental results showed that the pressure values of the left and right knee joints measured using the flexible pressure sensors on the leggings in real time and those obtained using the AMI3037-5s Airbag pressure tester were accompanied by F-values and t-test statistical probability values greater than 0.05. This indicates that there was no significant difference between the two values, reflecting the credibility of the flexible pressure-monitoring data. The oxygen saturation and total hemoglobin content of a subjects’ legs after exercising were higher than those before exercising, indicating that the leggings performed well in terms of fatigue relief. The subjects’ body surface temperature, when exercising, changed steadily and dropped gradually in the later stage, indicating that the leggings perform well with respect to thermal and moisture comfort. Flexible sensing technology has promising application prospects in wearable smart clothing in future, particularly in the sports and health fields.

In the case of an accident, inflatable restraints system plays a critical role in ensuring the safety of vehicle occupants. Frontal airbags have saved 44,869 lives, according to research conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).Finite element analysis is extremely important in the research and development of airbags in order to ensure optimum protection for occupant. In this work, we simulate a head impact test with a deploying airbag and investigate the airbag's parameters. The airbag's performance is directly influenced by the parameters of the cushion such as vent area and fabric elasticity. The FEM model is analysed to investigate the influence of airbag parameter, and the findings are utilised to determine an optimal value that may be employed in the construction of better occupant safety systems. Keywords: airbag, finite element method, occupant safety, frontal airbag, vent size, fabric elasticity, head injury criteria

The emergency transformation of various aspects of life and business these days requires prompt evaluation of autonomous vehicles. One of the primary reassessments deals with the applicability of the vehicle passive safety system to the protection of arbitrarily positioned passengers. To mitigate possible risks caused by the simultaneous deployment of several big airbags, a new principle of their operation is required. Herein, the aspirated inflator for a driver airbag is developed that can provide 50L-airbag inflation within 30–40 ms. As a result, about 3/4 of the air is to be entrained into an airbag from the vehicle compartment. The process is initiated by a supersonic pulse jet (1/3 air volume) generated pyrotechnically. Then the Prandtl–Meyer problem formulation enables guiding linear and angular dimensions of the essential parts of the device. Accordingly, a family of experimental models of varied geometry is fabricated and tested to determine their operational effectiveness in a range of motive pressure within ~ 3–7 MPa. Experiments are performed on a specially designed facility equipped with compressed-air tanks and a high-speed valve to mimic the inflator operation with the pyrotechnic gas generator. The aspirated inflator operability is characterized using multivariate measurements of pressure fields, high-speed video-recording of the airbag inflation process, and evaluation of aspiration (entrainment) ratio. The average volume aspiration ratio measured at 300 K is found to reach 2.8 and it’s expected to almost double at 1200 K.

Determination of the triggering conditions for automobile airbags is a complex problem because vehicles often run under transient conditions due to the dynamic influence from varying road conditions. The research into malfunctions of automobile airbags is an important and challenging topic. In this work, the peak acceleration and moving window integration algorithms were used to obtain the high-risk abuse items from a test matrix that consisted of 111 items which were under multiple road environment excitation, including condition categories for typical roads, curb striking, potholes and drains, and roadblocks. A novel multi-channel data reduction method and improved clustering method based on abuse probability sorting were proposed, and based on the specific characteristic constraints for the automobile airbag malfunction test results, by construction of a false triggering probability model and discussion of the weight factors of the two algorithms, importance rankings for the high-risk false action items were realized based on the relative probability. Finally, 53 high-risk abuse items were identified from a large set of 111 test items through 10-channel acceleration sensors. After analysis and comparison of the test condition details, conclusions of high-risk items are drawn with regard to the vehicle-road excitation that affects airbag abuse. The consistency of the identification results with the Chinese national standard verifies the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method.

The objective of this paper is to bring out the responsiveness of the capacitive accelerometer with changes in the input acceleration. The performance analysis of the device is done using COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS .It is analysed that when the capacitance reaches a threshold value, amplifying the electric signal the air bag could be initiated.3D capacitive accelerometers which are less prone to noise and temperature variations. They reduce the severity of the accident by sensing the sudden increase in negative acceleration and deployment of the airbags. The dependency between the acceleration and the capacitance has been analysed. The sensitivity of the device with respect to forces in real time accident conditions is observed.

Field data (NASS) analyses showed that 0.9 % of frontal airbags deployed in motor vehicle collisions sustained at least one type of damage. Crash investigators often need to determine whether a damaged airbag inflated in a timely manner to provide occupant protection during the crash. This study provided a comparison of physical evidence from the restraint system and the seat resulted from high-speed frontal impacts with and without airbag deployment. Evidence of an airbag deployment event was collected from a real-world vehicle crash, in which the airbag was found damaged at the scene. A sled test was conducted with an 80 km/h delta-V in an exemplar vehicle to demonstrate the occupant loading evidence on vehicle components when the airbag was absent in a crash of the same severity as the real-world crash. In the test, the load limiter was activated and provided webbing spool out until bottoming out, severe abrasions and markings occurred on the seatbelt webbing and the D-ring, and the seat bottom deformed downward. These occurrences were absent in the real-world crash, suggesting that the frontal airbag was inflated in a timely manner and absorbed occupant’s kinetic energy during the high speed frontal impact.

Introduction (problem statement and relevance). The airbag belongs to the passive vehicle safety system (SRS - Supplementary Restraint System) and is the most important (together with the seat belt) restraint system that protects the driver and passengers in a collision with static or moving objects. The main task of the SRS is to minimize injuries to the driver and passengers and reduce deaths in various road traffic accidents. For the development and testing of modern high-tech airbag modules, it is necessary to have informative theoretical and experimental methods for studying the non-stationary processes of their functioning.The purpose of the study was to develop an experimental-theoretical research method based on modern highly informative tools of experimental physics of fast processes and numerical methods for continuous media dynamics.Methodology and research methods. To study the functioning dynamics of vehicle airbag modules, an experimental method for determining the kinematic and acoustic parameters has been developed and implemented, and a mathematical model of an airbag functioning process has been formulated and implemented in the LS-DYNA environment with the help of corpuscular particles method.Scientific novelty and results. The created experimental-theoretical method allowed both to simulate the functioning processes of the developed and tested airbag modules, and to carry out field tests of these modules. In addition, the experiment made it possible to carry out a detailed verification of the numerical method for calculating the airbag operation, on the basis of which it was also possible to perform numerical calculations interaction of the airbag and an anthropometric dummy model.Practical significance. The developed method for studying the processes of airbag modules functioning is an important and necessary component of creating a scientific, technical and experimental base for the development and production of passive safety systems.

New helmet technologies have been developed to improve the mitigation of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in bicycle accidents. However, their effectiveness under oblique impacts, which produce more strains in the brain in comparison with vertical impacts adopted by helmet standards, is still unclear. Here we used a new method to assess the brain injury prevention effects of 27 bicycle helmets in oblique impacts, including helmets fitted with a friction-reducing layer (MIPS), a shearing pad (SPIN), a wavy cellular liner (WaveCel), an airbag helmet (Hövding) and a number of conventional helmets. We tested whether helmets fitted with the new technologies can provide better brain protection than conventional helmets. Each helmeted headform was dropped onto a 45° inclined anvil at 6.3 m/s at three locations, with each impact location producing a dominant head rotation about one anatomical axes of the head. A detailed computational model of TBI was used to determine strain distribution across the brain and in key anatomical regions, the corpus callosum and sulci. Our results show that, in comparison with conventional helmets, the majority of helmets incorporating new technologies significantly reduced peak rotational acceleration and velocity and maximal strain in corpus callosum and sulci. Only one helmet with MIPS significantly increased strain in the corpus collosum. The helmets fitted with MIPS and WaveCel were more effective in reducing strain in impacts producing sagittal rotations and a helmet fitted with SPIN in coronal rotations. The airbag helmet was effective in reducing brain strain in all impacts, however, peak rotational velocity and brain strain heavily depended on the analysis time. These results suggest that incorporating different impact locations in future oblique impact test methods and designing helmet technologies for the mitigation of head rotation in different planes are key to reducing brain injuries in bicycle accidents.

Automobile airbags have become mandatory safety components in many countries. In this study, the PA66 (polyamide 66) airbag fabric was tested with and without a surface coating of PVC (polyvinyl chloride). Cyclic loading and unloading experimental conditions were defined according to the loading characteristics of the airbag deployment process. To determine mechanical properties such as elastic modulus and stress-strain curves for the two materials, biaxial loading/unloading cyclic tensile tests were carried out using a DIC (Digital Inspection Camera) to monitor the field strain process. Quadratic polynomial regression was used to fit material constitutive models of each loading and unloading process to the test data. The material subroutine VUMAT was encoded and applied to the simulation of the biaxial tensile testing of the fabrics. There was good agreement between the experimental and simulation results, which verifies that the quadratic polynomial constitutive material model is suitable for the study of coated and uncoated PA66 automobile airbag fabric. Hence, the material behaviour of automobile airbag fabrics can be modelled accurately.

Vehicle restraint systems play an irreplaceable role to limit passenger injuries when an accident occurs, in which, the 3D acceleration sensor (AS) is an essential component to detect the collision position and force. However, there are some defects for commercial sensors such as passive sensing, low sensitivity and high manufacturing cost. Here, we report a lightweight, high-sensitivity, low-cost and self-powered 3D AS based on a liquid–metal triboelectric nanogenerator (LM-TENG). In view of the coded strategy of the electrodes, the 3D AS retains the smallest size, lowest weight and highest integration compared to the currently reported self-powered AS. The fabricated sensor possesses wide detection range from 0 to 100 m/s2 in the horizontal direction and 0 to 50 m/s2 in the vertical direction at a sensitivity of 800 mV/g. The open-circuit voltage shows a negligible decrease after continuously operating for 100,000 times, showing excellent stability and durability. Furthermore, the 3D AS is demonstrated as a part of the airbag system to spot the collision position and force of the car simultaneously. This work will further promote the commercialization of TENG-based sensor and exhibits a prospective application in the vehicle restraint system.

Due to increase in fabric thickness and decrease compactness in packing, film bonding is unfavorable for airbag fabrics, furthermore, the uncoated fabric fabricated with a high density but it still has hot gas leakage problems. This study focuses on enhancement of vehicle airbag nylon 66 fabric properties by using a combination of different concentration of silica nanoparticles (SiO2 NPs) and low-density adhesion polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The results illustrated that the nylon 66 fabric, which coated with PVA and SiO2 NPs presents an excellent property such as a thin layer reached at (0.009 mm), also thermal and mechanical properties have been enhanced to include better mechanical properties according to commercial guidelines airbag of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Additionally, the weight per square meter of nylon 66 fabric coated with the PVA and high concentration of SiO2 NPs is 9.9 grams. Besides, the final dry weight of the coating (PVA/SiO2) material taken by the nylon 66 fabric is just 0.4 grams per square meter. The coated fabric demonstrated a hydrophobicity property in addition to the air-permeability has decreased by increasing the amount of SiO2 NPs in the composite material. The PVA and SiO2 NPs dispersed on the surface of the fabrics without any aggregation, as well, the coated fabric is gradually changed from flexible to hard which resulted in the better final performance in the proper and regular thickness along the whole fabric.

In this paper, we put an investigation into the nonlinear vibration mechanism of the marine rotating machinery with an airbag isolation device under heaving motion. First, we consider the effects of mass unbalance and heaving motion and propose a mathematical model of the marine rotating mechanical system with airbag vibration isolation. Then, the multiple-scale method is conducted to analyze the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the mechanical system; the frequency-response curves are mainly studied under different parameters, such as the heave excitation, rotor speed, and damping; and the numerical method is also introduced to analyze its dynamic behaviors, such as the steady-state response and its corresponding phase diagram, Poincaré section. The dynamic stability of the system is investigated based on the bifurcations and the largest Lyapunov exponent about rotor speed and heaving frequency. The obtained results indicate complex nonlinear characteristics of the system compared to the system without heaving excitation, which can help us fully understand the dynamic characteristics and parametric optimization as well as structural design of the marine mechanical isolation system.

In an automobile vehicle, azide based conventional fuels are used for airbag inflation. The exposure of sodium azide leads to several health issues such as hypotension, indigestion, breathing difficulties, eyes burning, itching, drowsiness etc. This made the focus shifted towards finding out a non azide fuel suitable for an airbag inflation. This paper discusses about the selection and procedural implementation of a suitable non azide fuel for an airbag gas generants by forming a ranking matrix. Ranking matrix were formed based on the economic and hazardous parameters such as toxicity, instability and inflammability factors. The detailed literature survey on the different non-azide fuels available and performance evaluation techniques showed that Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetry (TG), Accelerating Rate Calorimetry (ARC) were used for evaluating the thermal parameters such as peak pressure, heat of formation, burning rate, pressure rate and decomposition temperature. The review was found useful to select various modelling and numerical techniques proposed by researchers for calculating the kinetic parameters such as activation energy, pre-exponential factor and reaction rate. These performance parameters of the conventional azide fuels can be kept as a bench mark while evaluating the non azide fuel. This review aids the researchers to choose a non azide fuel based on ranking matrix and to carry out performance analysis for a possible substitution of conventional azide based airbag fuels.

The contribution deals with the basic principles of operation of EDR technology and the further process of obtaining and using data for the reconstruction of an accident. One of the many devices that leave a digital evidence is the EDR memory module, which is contained in the airbag control unit of a car and which can record and store data from the accident. The CDR system enables to download and decode the stored data from the airbag control module, that experts can use among others for the technical analysis of an accident and objectively reconstruct it. The future of the analysis of traffic accidents will lie in use of the CDR system and the correct evaluation of the technical data obtained from the memory of the airbag unit. Legislative and technical preparations, which are currently taking place in Europe, aim to establish clear rules and requirements for OEM companies to implement Event Data Recorder (EDR) all over. It shows what data should be stored in airbag unit, how long is the section and what frequency must be used for data acquisition. The aim of these preparations is to establish clear rules for passenger car manufacturers (category M1 and all vehicles complying with the requirements), which should enter into force in 2022.

In this study, thermal characterisation of stoichiometric azodicarbonamide/potassium periodate (C2H4O2N4/KIO4) fuel/oxidizer mixtures were systematically carried out for potential application as non azide non-toxic airbag gas generants. The onset temperature of the mixture was found to be 190 °C. The thermo-kinetic studies of the mixture and pure azodicarbonamide compositions at different heating rates were also carried out using Ozawa and Kissinger method and the Arrhenius parameters were computed. The activation energy of the C2H4O2N4/KIO4 mixture by Ozawa method was found to be 81.5 kJ mol−1 and 78.9 kJ mol−1 by Kissinger method. It was found that the activation energy of the pure azodicarbonamide was higher compared to the mixture. Ballistic tank tests to obtain the pressure Vs time plots were also done and the mixture gave time response of 45.2 ms and 55.54 ms to peak pressure. The experimental results have shown that C2H4O2N4/KIO4 mixture can be used as a replacement to existing azide based airbag gas generant compositions. Thus, the paper attempts to thermally characterize a non-toxic C2H4O2N4/KIO4 airbag gas generant mixture which can replace toxic azide based airbag gas generants and thereby facilitate safer driving.

In a ship planning can not be separated from the planning of the ship launching process. A ship can glide perfectly if it has a high enough planning time and costs. The launch process itself is divided into several ways. The choice of this method needs to be considered because it relates to the budget and preparations made. The method used is the calculation according to the numerical approach assisted by computational software. In the first calculation it is planned with the slipway launch, and then the next one is planned with the airbags that have been implemented previously. The purpose of this study is to provide analysis results as a consideration in implementing the slipway and airbag ship launching method on KM ships. Belt Nusantara 72 measuring 2000 DWT. In steps 5 to 6, both the slipway and the airbags experience a stern lift condition with a value (yVd) of 1396.97 ton. Based on the economic analysis of the hours of people using airbags, there is a decrease in working hours by 44% when compared to the launch using a slipway. This also happened to work productivity where it was 84% more time effective. When viewed from an investment point of view, the use of slipways is actually more economical than airbag, the difference is 43% more economical using slipways. Both types of launch can be applied by looking at the economical side and the ability of each shipyard in carrying out the launching process and seeing the main size of the ship to be launched.

Previous studies indicate that seatbelts may require supplementary restraints to increase their effectiveness in far-side impacts. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel, far-side-specific airbag in restraining and preventing injuries in far-side impacts, and to evaluate the WorldSID’s response to the presence of a far-side airbag. A series of tests with three Post-Mortem Human Subjects and the WorldSID was conducted in a vehicle-based sled environment equipped with a far-side airbag. Results of these tests were evaluated and compared to a previous test series conducted without the airbag. All of the PMHS retained the shoulder belt on the shoulder. The airbag significantly reduced PMHS injury severity and maximum lateral head excursion. While the WorldSID exhibited a similar decrease in lateral excursion, it was unable to represent PMHS thoracic deflection or injury probability, and it consistently slipped out of the shoulder belt. This indicates that the WorldSID is limited both in its ability to evaluate the effect of changes in the seatbelt system and in its ability to predict thoracic injury risk and assess airbag-related injury mitigation countermeasures.

Recently, motorcycle accidents have increased as the number of motorcycle drivers has increased. Although the head and neck are the body parts most frequently injured when a motorcycle accident occurs, there is a lack of research on the protection afforded to the neck by the safety equipment used by motorcycle drivers. This study presents an airbag system that uses artificial intelligence to prevent injury to the neck of a motorcycle driver. It uses a six-axis sensor, the MPU6050 sensor, which measures acceleration and angular velocity in real time as the user moves. The angles are obtained by using the measured acceleration and angular velocity, and the accident situation is judged by AI, which analyzes the acceleration and angle data. Because data is needed for AI to learn, data by type were collected through experiments. In this study, we compare the judgement performance of a parallel neural networks–convolutional neural network and a parallel neural network.

Accelerometers are one of the simplest and most important applications of Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS). This paper deals with the design, analysis and Design of Experiments (DOE) of a MEMS-based capacitive accelerometer for automotive applications. The key design parameters to be considered while designing an accelerometer are the sensitivity and the bandwidth of operation. The present work focuses on the design and improvement of an accelerometer to ensure that it operates for a larger bandwidth without compromising on the sensitivity. The structural parameters, overall dimensions and size of the accelerometer are first identified. Subsequently, a parametric analysis is performed using $${2}^{k}$$ Design of Experiments for various g values from 5 to 50 g totalling 40 runs. Depending on the level of influence, these structural parameters are then modified for an improved accelerometer design. Later, a sensitivity analysis is performed. It was seen that the improved design performed better than the rest. A Modal analysis was also performed to determine the resonant/natural frequencies and the mode shapes. It was found that the presented design is safe to operate. This method of approach would help in arriving at a better accelerometer for the desired application.

The paper mobilises the distinctive notion of ‘sites of qualification’ as a means of providing an expansive understanding of how innovative products are designed, produced and brought to consumer markets. We focus on the development of a new safety product for motorcyclists, the rider airbag, in which inflatable body protection is either incorporated into, or worn underneath, textile jackets and leather suits. The paper follows the airbag’s trajectory across a range of different sites, including lead firms and their territorial settings; MotoGP racetracks, mobile laboratories and professional riders; courts of law; and showroom and archive locations. The paper’s sites of qualification approach expands understandings of innovation by constructing a dialogue between two sets of literatures: actor-network approaches to the qualification of products; and narratives which understand economic innovation as emerging through clusters of agents and firms within industrial districts. The conclusion emphasises that sites of qualification are integral to the ways in which technical products such as the rider airbag are made social.

For closed-hole panels such as hat-stiffened panels, it is inevitable to use mandrels during the manufacturing process. However, the uniformity of pressure transmission of the silicone rubber mandrel with the prefabricated hole is not good, the vacuum bag mandrel is easy to be broken and wrinkled, the water-soluble mandrel is high in cost, and the invar steel metal mandrel is difficult to demold. To solve these problems, this article proposed a new method for co-curing carbon fiber-reinforced resin matrix composite hat-stiffened panels by using a silicone airbag as a mandrel through autoclaves. Firstly, the thermo-force-flow multi-field coupling finite element model of co-curing carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) hat-stiffened panels was established by using finite element software. The co-curing process of hat-stiffened panels was simulated and studied. The influence of different thickness of silicone airbag mandrels on the wall thickness and pressure of the workpiece were found to be relatively uniform in the new process. Then, the autoclave experiment was carried out to verify the correctness of the finite element model. Lastly, the interfacial bonding strength test was carried out to verify the mechanical properties of the parts. In summary, the practicability of co-curing CFRP hat-stiffened panels with silicone airbag male mandrels was proved in this article. The precision of CFRP hat-stiffened panel was efficiently promoted by this new process.

According to the buckle release theories, the seat belt can be released during an impact and the occupant sustained injuries without a benefit from the restraint system. A few studies have been published demonstrating that the seat belt release during an impact results in belt entanglement of occupant’s outboard arm. However, there is no previous belt entanglement study using airbag equipped vehicle. Two controlled sled tests in 30-degree oblique frontal impact using airbag equipped vehicle were conducted at 44 km/h delta V to compare the driver occupant kinematics, physical evidence on seat belt system and occupant interaction with the seat belt in fully restrained and partially restrained condition. The fully restrained test demonstrated the nature and extent of the physical evidence placed on a latched and properly worn restraint system. Loading marks were found on restraint’s webbing and hardware including the latch plate and guide loop (D ring). The partially restrained test results showed that a release of the latch plate was followed by webbing engagement with the ATD left arm and subsequent loading. This loading event produces large contact forces on the left arm which can produce significant surface injuries.

application/pdf, International Journal of Crashworthiness. 2020

Objective: Field data have shown significant benefit from driver airbag for occupant protection in frontal crashes. However, vehicle modifiers almost always permanently deactivate airbags for wheelchair-seated drivers. The objective of this study was to conduct sled tests and computational simulations to answer whether driver airbags should be deactivated for drivers seated in wheelchairs. Methods: Five sled tests were conducted under a 48-kph 20-g frontal crash pulse all with driver airbag. Seat-belt fit (good, poor, and unbelted), airbag deployment time (proper and late), and occupant size (midsize male and small female HIII ATDs) were varied in the tests. The 2006 Chrysler Town-and-Country minivan was selected as the nominal vehicle environment, and a surrogate wheelchair with a docking securement system was used for all sled tests. ATD injury measures for the head, neck, chest, and lower extremities were recorded in each test, and were used for validating a set of MADYMO models. Parametric studies with a total of 28 MADYMO simulations were then conducted to investigate the airbag effects on occupant injury risks with varied occupant size, belt fit, and impact angle (0, 15, and 30 deg). Results: The sled tests showed potential safety concerns for wheelchair-seated drivers with a poor belt fit or without a belt. Specifically, the unbelted midsize male ATD sustained high femur forces and the small female ATD with poor belt fit sustained high chest deflections. The parametric simulations showed that airbag generally improved the protection for wheelchair-seated drivers. It is especially useful for unbelted wheelchair-seated drivers, and is also helpful for reducing the head and neck injury risks regardless of the belt condition, occupant size, and impact angle. Conclusions: This is the first study using sled tests and computational simulations to investigate the effects of airbag deployment on injury risks of wheelchair-seated drivers. Overall, the results showed little basis for concern that the energy of deploying a driver airbag in today’s vehicles will cause serious-to-fatal injuries to drivers seated in wheelchairs. The results of this study therefore support the idea that driver airbags generally offer tangible safety benefits for a wide range of wheelchair-seated drivers in frontal crashes.

The airbag deployment against an out of position (OP) occupant is critical. The OP condition can be hardly expected during design, while a too close airbag deployment can cause serious injuries instead of mitigating the crash effects. An adaptive airbag system would be capable to adjust its deployment to the inside scenario. However, the integration between human passengers and intelligent vehicle requires the airbag control unit to be aware of the actual occupant(s) position. In the present research, a methodology for monitoring the occupant(s) position is developed and tested with a seat prototype. A layout of thin film sensors monitors the interface pressure between the occupant and the seat cover. An inertial measurement unit (IMU) monitors the accelerations of the vehicle, considered the reference moving platform. A microcontroller is programmed for pressure sensors calibration, IMU alignment with the vehicle reference system, signals processing, OP detection, and identification. Real driving experiments on a race track were performed in the correct position and in three different OPs. The comparison of the pressure center in longitudinal and transversal directions with the vehicle acceleration enables to identify the OPs.

Embedded-control systems in transportation, medical instruments, and manufacturing are often time critical, that is, they have to fi nish execution within their period or they have to respond to sensor input within a given deadline. Both period and deadline are dictated by the physics of the system. Examples for sensor-actuator control are the airbag and the automatic brake control in cars. Clearly, if the airbag controller fails to inflate the airbag in time, the driver will hit the steering wheel. Flight control and guidance, collision-avoidance, or ground proximity warning systems in airplanes are examples from the aviation domain. Deadlines in airplanes are often in the order of milliseconds, while crankshaft-synchronous tasks in cars often have periods on the order of microseconds. A rigid verification of time-critical software should include a static timing verification. Measurement-based methods cannot guarantee to hit the worst case and to determine its execution time (WCET) because the number of cases to consider is too large to allow exhaustive methods. Certification rules and practice of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) requires the use of static timing analysis in the certification of time-critical plane components.

Injuries to the head and the neck are the most frequent in the event of motorcycle accidents. But enough research has not been done to protect the neck. This paper presents an airbag system that recognizes the accident situation with Artificial Intelligence to protect the driver's neck area from motorcycle accident situations when driving. In some papers with similar themes, most of them are judged based on a critical point. However, in the case of an accident judgment using the critical point, a malfunction may occur such that the airbag operates when a similar operation is performed, or the airbag does not operate due to failing to pass the critical point at the time of an accident. Artificial intelligence was used to avoid malfunctions and inconveniences. Artificial intelligence can solve the problem of malfunction that occurs when it is judged as a critical point and can solve the inconvenience of commercialized products. The CNN presented in this paper can solve these two problems, and the accuracy of accident judgment is as high as 95.75%. Through the MPU 6050 sensor, it operates the airbag by determining the accident situation using the Artificial Intelligence that was learned in advance through the information on acceleration and angular velocity of the driver's movements that were measured in real time. To make Artificial Intelligence learn, the data were collected by dividing several types of accidents on motorcycles. In this paper, the Artificial Intelligence made by Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) method and the Artificial Intelligence made by Neural Networks (NN) method is compared, and it is confirmed that the performance such as Test Accuracy or Train Accuracy of CNN is better.

Organization of feeding sick horses play an important role in the treatment and recov-ery of the animal after the disease. In the case of dysphagia, the use of forced nutrition through a nasogastric tube is required, which makes special demands on the feed used and the form of their supply. The main objective of the study was to analyze the results of the organization of feeding of a horse with dys-phagia caused by mycosis of the air sac with damaged cranial nerves in a specific clinical case and assess the effectiveness of the feed-ing methods and techniques for subsequent use in veterinary practice. In the process of treatment, various methods of preparation and administration of feed and water were used. The most effective method at the be-ginning of treatment (2-3 weeks) was completely enteral feed administration. For the preparation of a mixture for enteral admin-istration, granular compound feeds are well suited that are adopted to the needs of the horse. As the function of swallowing is re-stored, it is possible to transfer to mush, which include concentrates and roughages. The introduction of roughage in its natural form is not advisable until the swallowing function is fully restored, due to the risk of aspiration pneumonia as hay particles can be thrown into the trachea. During the peri-od of treatment and long recovery, the horse may well manage with a minimum amount of dry matter in the diet (up to 1.5% BW), with sufficient intake of energy and protein. In determining the minimum nutritional needs of the horse, one can focus on the feeding standards of non-working horses with minimal physical activity, proposed by the NRC.

The primary purpose of an avalanche airbag is to prevent burial during an avalanche. Approximately twenty percent of avalanche victims deploying airbags become critically buried, however. One avalanche airbag actively deflates three minutes after deployment, potentially creating an air pocket. Our objective was to evaluate this air pocket and its potential to prevent asphyxiation.Twelve participants were fitted with an airbag and placed prone on the snow. Participants deployed the airbag and were buried in 1.5 m of snow for 60 min with vital signs including oxygen saturation (SpO2) and end-tidal CO2 (ETCO2) measured every minute. Participants completed a post-burial survey to determine head movement within the air pocket.Eleven of the 12 participants (92%) completed 60 min of burial. Preburial baseline SpO2 measurements did not change significantly over burial time (P 0.05). Preburial baseline ETCO2 measurements increased over the burial time (P 0.02); only one ETCO2 value was outside of the normal ETCO2 range (35-45 mmHg). Participants reported they could move their head forward 11.2 cm (SD 4.8 cm) and backward 6.6 cm (SD 5.1 cm) with the majority of participants stated that they had enough head movement to separate the oral cavity from opposing snow if necessary. Visual examination during extrication revealed a well-defined air pocket in all burials.The avalanche airbag under study creates an air pocket that appears to delay asphyxia, which could allow extra time for rescue and improve overall survival of avalanche victims.

Activation time for activating the occupant restraint systems (airbag and seatbelt) is very critical for an optimal safety action. A crash-pulse is the deceleration of the vehicle measured during in a crash. The shape, slope, maximum deceleration and duration of the crash-pulse provides significant information over the nature of occupant motions during in-crash phase and hence the crash severity. The above parameters of the crash-pulse not only depend on the mass and impact velocity but also on the crash configuration (position of impact, overlap, relative approach angle etc.). This study focuses on analysis and characterization of crash-pulses in head-on collision cases with varying overlap configurations. The paper describes causes for occupant injuries during a crash, crash-pulse and its important physical parameters, and different methodologies used to analyse the crash-pulse. Finite element simulation method is used to study the crash-pulses from different crash configurations. A new severity index that has direct influence on the occupant kinematics is defined. The results show that the steep decrease of crash-pulse for small overlap configurations (less than 25 percent of vehicle width) lags by 20 to 25 milliseconds as compared to configurations with large overlaps. The shape of the crash-pulse also changes for crash scenarios with different overlap configurations. The results, discussion and conclusion sections of this paper provide a summary of crash behaviour of varying overlap crash scenarios and insights that can be used for deployment of restraint systems.

Air gun shock systems are commonly used as alternative explosion energy sources for underwater explosion (UNDEX) shock tests owing to their low cost and environmental impact. The airbag inflator of automotive airbag systems is also very useful to generate extremely rapid underwater gas release in lab-scale tests. To overcome the restrictions on the very small computational time step owing to the very fine fluid mesh around the nozzle hole in the explicit integration algorithm, and also the absence of a commercial solver and software for gas UNDEX of airbag inflator, an idealized airbag inflator and fluid mesh modeling technique was developed using nozzle holes of relatively large size and several small TNT charges instead of gas inside the airbag inflator. The objective of this study is to validate the results of an UNDEX response analysis of one and two idealized airbag inflators by comparison with the results of shock tests in a small water tank. This comparison was performed using the multi-material Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation and fluid-structure interaction algorithm. The number, size, vertical distance from the nozzle outlet, detonation velocity, and lighting times of small TNT charges were determined. Through mesh size convergence tests, the UNDEX response analysis and idealized airbag inflator modeling were validated.

To repair leaking pipelines for oil, natural gas and other dangerous media, a kind of pipeline sealing robot is proposed. The device is mainly divided into a robot drive unit, connection unit, and blocking unit. The robot drive unit is used to pull the blocking unit, allowing it to move in the pipeline. The connection unit is used to connect the robot drive unit and the blocking unit. The blocking unit is used to complete the repair at the leakage point. When the robot operates, the drive unit drags the blocking device to the pipeline leakage location, and the front camera can detect the size and shape of the leakage hole. The sealing unit is located at the leakage point, an airbag is inflated, and the adhesive in it is used to seal and repair the leak. Two performance indices (climbing performance and curve passing performance) are evaluated when the robot drive unit is walking. A 3D model of the robot is established, and the performance index of the robot is simulated and analyzed using virtual prototype technology. An experimental platform is built for verification. The conclusions are as follows: (1) A spring with a 13 N/mm rigidity yielded the best performance, and the robot could crawl up a 37° slope. (2) When the deflection angle of the driving wheel was set to 30°, the robot could smoothly pass a bend with a radius of curvature of 500 mm. Thus, the robot performance met the design requirements.

International audience; This study presents a low-power wearable system able to predict a fall by detecting a pre-impact condition, performed through a simple analysis of motion data (acceleration) and height of the subject. The system can detect a fall in all directions with an average consumption of 5.91 mA; i.e., it can monitor the activity of daily living (ADL), whether or not a fall occurs. The entire detection system uses a single wearable tri-axis accelerometer placed on the waist for the comfort of the wearer during a long-term application. The algorithm is based on the following hypothesis: "A region defined as balanced boundary circle, based on the user's height, is characterized by the fact the chance that an actual fall happening is minimal. When an activity is classified outside this circle, an acceleration analysis is performed to determine an impending fall condition". Our threshold-based algorithm was validated experimentally, first with 9 young healthy volunteers performing both normal ADL and fall activities and then using 10 ADL and 5 falls from public SisFall dataset. The results show that falls could be detected with an average leadtime of 259 ms before the impact occurs, with minimal false alarms (97.7% specificity) and a sensitivity of 92.6%. This is a good lead-time achieved thus far in pre-impact fall detection, permitting the integration of our detection system in a wearable inflatable airbag for hip protection.

Manipulators are increasingly used in mechanical manufacturing due to the needs of industrial automation. The shortcomings of traditional manipulators, such as those in relation to their flexibility, interactivity, and safety, lead to certain limitations in their application for variable shapes and fragile objects. Given the above shortcomings of traditional manipulators, this research analysed a friction-enhanced multi-airbag soft manipulator and its performance. Analysis results of characteristic parameters show that the structure of the airbag soft manipulator is optimized, and the structural design and manufacture of the soft manipulator are completed. Deformation of the manipulator base material is described by the Neo-Hooke strain energy function, and the strain energy function coefficient is derived by obtaining the characteristic parameters of the material through tensile experiments. Finite element analysis of the manipulator is performed according to the determined strain energy function. The influence of the characteristic parameters on the mechanical bending of the manipulator is studied. Theoretical analysis proves the validity of the finite element analysis. The structural parameters of the manipulator are finally determined according to the simulation analysis results. The control system is designed according to the driving method and working mode of the soft manipulator to perform the soft manipulator grasp experiment. The manipulator can lift a weight of 300 g, thereby indicating that the soft manipulator designed in this paper has a good application effect and prospects.

Unbalanced body pressure distribution caused by poor sitting posture is a significant factor causing lumbar disease. Research on the dynamic adjustment strategy for comfort sitting posture is of great significance to the prevention and improvement of lumbar disease. In this study, based on the pressure sensor array, the body pressure distribution in different sitting postures are obtained, including: back bow, waist bow, body slip, body right leaning, standard sitting position, and body left leaning. The recognition of the human body posture was achieved using the support vector machine algorithm and the accuracy rate reach to 83.33%. Furthermore, the evaluation indicators for sitting comfort of the human body are proposed using the maximum pressure, average pressure, maximum pressure gradient, average pressure gradient and asymmetry coefficient, the accuracy of the above indicators were verified using semantic differential subjective evaluation method. Experimental results show that there is a strong positive correlation between objective indicators and seat comfort. In addition, the dynamic adjustment strategy using airbag base on seat comfort evaluation is studied.

Pressure ulcers (PU) are one of the most frequent hazards of long-term bedridden patients. With the continuous increase of aging, the number of long-term bedridden disabled and semi-disabled elderly people is increasing. At the same time, there is a serious shortage of professional pressure ulcer nursing staff. There is also a lack of flexible turning equipment for PU prevention. The research in the field of pressure ulcer prevention at home and abroad is carried out steadily, and the equipment for turning over by pneumatic or mechanical drive is developed. However, these devices often have insurmountable defects, such as complex structure, cost constraints, difficult control, weak body feeling, and so on. Under these circumstances, a set of pneumatic turnover mattresses based on clinical nursing methods have been developed. The mattress is divided into a turnover area and two support areas. The turnover airbag is linked with the support airbag to improve the patient’s comfort when passively turning over. The turnover amplitude and interval can be adjusted to provide a personalized turnover experience for bedridden patients. To improve the safety of the turning mattress during automatic turning, we also add a temperature sensor based on the principle of infrared reflection to monitor the status of bedridden patients, which can realize real-time temperature measurement, monitoring of getting out of bed and monitoring of the turning process.

The train accidents are happening due to unmanned railway crossing. Also people with suicidal tendency are sitting on the train track, which causes instant death. These incidents cause immediate disruption of the railway traffic on the track. This paper introduced a novel concept to pre vent such accidents, The Airbag Robot instantaneously inflate with the impact of human object using Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and prevent injury to the human beings due to sudden impact on them. In addition, it prevents damage to the tracks and avoid late running of the train. The simulation on Matlab about the position of train, its velocity in coordination with the sensed object and the airbag Robotic instantaneous inflation due to an impact on MEMS device has given the satisfactory result on Matlab.In addition, the inflated Airbag Robot will assist in creating an Air drag to stop the running train earlier.

With the advancement in the surrounding sensing technologies for autonomous driving systems, the immense potential is yet to be explored in vehicle safety. A robust binary decision (Yes/No) about the requirement of any irreversible safety action such as the deployment of airbags in the pre-crash phase is a big step. In this work, we investigate different machine learning approaches for determining the severity of occupant injury in two classes: Safe Zone and Injury Zone. One of the essential outcomes of this paper is the selection of the input features through feature engineering. Five machine learning models are investigated and compared based on different evaluation criteria to find the best classification model for the application. XGBoost, Catboost, Random Forest, Kernel SVM, K-nearest neighbors, and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were trained on data collected through FEM simulations. XGBoost was found to be the best performing model. If the predicted severity lies in the Injury Zone during pre-crash, airbag activation is required. Hence, this prediction can be used in pre-crash for steering an inevitable crash in a crash with low severity.

It is easy for human body to contact with objects for a long time to cause fatigue of corresponding parts. How to use robot technology to reduce or eliminate this fatigue in order to improve work efficiency, ensure human health and improve comfort is an important problem in the field of robot. In this paper, combined with the characteristics of animal tissues (puffer’s air bag, etc.), through the application of soft robot related technology, a set of program-controlled active flexible massage system is made. The system is mainly composed of support frame, air bag placement module and electrical system. The system can be freely deformed and combined, soft and comfortable, and has strong expansibility. In addition, we propose a control method to calculate the relationship between the air pressure inside the airbag and the surface tension of the airbag, set four working modes for the system, and measure the air pressure inside the airbag under the four modes. The results show that the proposed control method is feasible and will have a very broad application prospect in medical rehabilitation.

The traffic accident occurrence rate is increasing relative to the increase in the number of people using personal mobility device (PM). This paper proposes an airbag system with a more efficient algorithm to decide the deployment of a wearable bike airbag in case of an accident. The existing wearable airbags are operated by judging the accident situations using the thresholds of sensors. However, in this case, the judgment accuracy can drop against various motions. This study used the long short-term memory (LSTM) model using the sensor values of the inertial measurement unit (IMU) as input values to judge accident occurrences, which obtains data in real time from the three acceleration-axis and three angular velocity-axis sensors on the driver motion states and judges whether or not an accident has occurred using the obtained data. The existing neural network (NN) or convolutional neural network (CNN) model judges only the input data. This study confirmed that this model has a higher judgment accuracy than the existing NN or CNN by giving strong points even in “past information” through LSTM by regarding the driver motion as time-series data.

Cycling accidents are the leading cause of sports-related head injuries in the US. Conventional bicycle helmets typically consist of polycarbonate shell over Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam and are tested with drop tests to evaluate a helmet’s ability to reduce head kinematics. Within the last decade, novel helmet technologies have been proposed to mitigate brain injuries during bicycle accidents, which necessitates the evaluation of their effectiveness in impact testing as compared to conventional helmets. In this paper, we reviewed the literature to collect and analyze the kinematic data of drop test experiments carried out on helmets with different technologies. In order to provide a fair comparison across different types of tests, we clustered the datasets with respect to their normal impact velocities, impact angular momentum, and the type of neck apparatus. When we analyzed the data based on impact velocity and angular momentum clusters, we found that the bicycle helmets that used rotation damping based technology, namely MIPS, had significantly lower peak rotational acceleration (PRA) and Generalized Acceleration Model for Brain Injury Threshold (GAMBIT) as compared to the conventional EPS liner helmets (p < 0.01). SPIN helmets had a superior performance in PRA compared to conventional helmets (p < 0.05) in the impact angular momentum clustered group, but not in the impact-velocity clustered comparisons. We also analyzed other recently developed helmets that primarily use collapsible structures in their liners, such as WaveCel and Koroyd. In both of the impact velocity and angular momentum groups, helmets based on the WaveCel technology had significantly lower peak linear acceleration (PLA), PRA, and GAMBIT at low impact velocities as compared to the conventional helmets, respectively (p < 0.05). The protective gear with the airbag technology, namely Hövding, also performed significantly better compared to the conventional helmets in the analyzed kinematic-based injury metrics (p < 0.001), possibly due to its advantage in helmet size and stiffness. We also observed that the differences in the kinematic datasets strongly depend on the type of neck apparatus. Our findings highlight the importance and benefits of developing new technologies and impact testing standards for bicycle helmet designs for better prevention of traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The airbag is a lifesaver innovation in automobile industry, but the impact of airbag deployment may cause maxillofacial fractures. Airbag deployment in traffic accidents is a rare etiology of orbital fractures. Although there are reports about airbag-induced orbital fractures in the literature, isolated bilateral blowout fractures have not been published yet. We present a case of isolated bilateral blowout fracture due to airbag deployment in a traffic accident and its management in this study.

Automotive airbags protect occupants from crash forces during severe vehicle collisions. They absorb energy and restrain the occupants by providing a soft cushion effect known as the restraint effect. Modern airbags offer partial restraint effect control by controlling the bag’s vent holes and providing multi-stage deployment. Full restraint effect control is still a challenge because the closed-loop restraint control system needs airbag–occupant contact and interaction feedback. In this work, we have developed novel single and matrix capacitive tactile sensors to measure the occupant’s contact data. They can be integrated with the airbag surface and folded to follow the dynamic airbag shape during the deployment. The sensors are tested under a low-velocity pendulum impact and benchmarked with high-speed test videos. The results reveal that the single sensor can successfully measure occupant–airbag contact time and estimate the area, while the contact position is additionally identified from the matrix sensor.

The traditional image processing method has a low detection rate for various kinds of automobile airbag surface defects in the production process, which is difficult to meet the actual demand of industrial production. In order to improve the detection rate of automobile airbag surface defects and meet the real-time requirements of industrial detection, this paper proposes an improved Faster RCNN deep learning algorithm. Firstly, the method adopts the E-FPN to enhance the feature extraction ability of the network for multi-scale targets. Then, ROI Align algorithm is introduced instead of ROI Pooling algorithm to improve the detection ability of small targets. Finally, the designed Light Head is used to improve the running speed of the network. The experimental results show that the average precision of the improved Faster RCNN algorithm for automobile airbag defect detection reaches 97.2%, and the detection time is 23.73 milliseconds, which is obviously superior to the original algorithm and has higher detection accuracy and practicability.

Human fall is the second leading cause of death by accidental or unintentional injury which leads to coma, paralysis, and brain trauma. The existing method has a hip protection airbag suit which prevents to get an injury in the trochanteric region and prevent to get fractures. The drawback of this methodology, it protects only the hip region of patients, without protecting important parts like the head, thoracic cavity. After a fall - related accident, senior patients mentally, emotionally week and getting ‘fear of repeated fall'. To rectify those problems, our innovation presents the use of an airbag suit with a certain sensor to protect the life of elders and also gives an alarm message to care-takers. After identifying hazardous slant, the micro controller must start a sign which can enact the engine driver to expand an airbag consciously positioned kind of a suit. The airbag garment is stretchable fabric that is made up of nylon or polyamide cloth filled with nitrogen or argon gas which will inflate in case of sudden fall, to avoid severe injury in the head, thoracic region, vertebrate column, and pelvic region. With help of tri-axis accelerometer sensor and through GSM the emergency notification sends to the care-taker.

In this paper, the application of Support Vector Machine (SVM) on multiple car crash situations for improved decision of saftey applications, e.g. airbag control systems is presented. In general, we should argue from a different perspective: we don’t want to show the latest and greatest Machine Learing (ML) results. The intention of the paper is to show how state of the art products use ML for safety critical applications. It is the goal to avoid the deployment of an airbag. Today, saftey applications depend on various detection algorithms and sensor systems. The challenge for these kind of decision problems depend on crucial constraints named decision time and sensor signals which are complicated to distinguish. The system has to decide whether to fire or not to fire an airbag within a few milliseconds. We use a (Multiclass) Support Vector Machine to account for an improved classification with the given constraints. Various multiclass classification methods are rated and the two methods One-Versus-Rest and One-Versus-One are benchmarked in terms of quantities as test error, training time, memory consumption and misclassified crashes. All methods are applied to real measurement data of car crashes for the type of full frontal crashes in various conditions. We will show that One-Versus-One performs best. The method is able to classify car crash situations and improve the detection possibility. This allows for active and passive occupant safety components in the automotive area.