The exact modeling of the airbag is of high importance for the computation of impact loads on the occupants during a vehicle crash. In addition to the realistic consideration of gas flow within the airbag, mapping airbag fabric and representing the airbag folding become increasingly important. This paper provides an overview of appropriate and required test procedures for airbag fabrics to determine necessary characteristic material values for crash simulation programs. The mapping of airbag materials based on these characteristic values is required for a realistic simulation of the airbag deployment. In order to improve the quality and prognostic value of airbag simulations, a standard for boundary computation conditions has been defined by the German automotive industry. To be able to describe fabric properties independently from the supplier and numerically consistently, the fabrics are tested using specified measurement procedures. These include: uniaxial tensile test biaxial tensile tests, picture frame tests (shear tests), fabric permeability tests, friction coefficient determination. In this paper, measurement procedures and the generation of characteristic material values as well as necessary evaluation procedures are discussed in detail. Furthermore, deployment simulations of realistically folded airbags are mapped using different simulation software in use in the German automotive industry and compared with test results. It is shown that the use of the newly determined material data significantly improves the computation results. After having intensively studied the topics gas dynamics and material characterization, the current focus is on the process-oriented generation of a folded airbag model. In this paper, intermediate results of these activities are discussed.