One of the key selling points of present day automobiles are safety devices such as the airbag. While airbags offer a high level of protection against head and chest injury, they also have the potential of producing minor injuries consisting primarily of skin abrasions and burns. The current research focus is to develop a method that will predict the likelihood of thermal burns from the high-temperature airbag exhaust gas. In the present study, a mathematical model of the heat transfer into the skin from the airbag exhaust gas is developed and solved numerically. An analytical solution is used to validate the numerical model during the airbag deflection period. A parametric study is performed to determine the relative importance of the gas jet velocity, gas jet temperature, airbag deflection time, and vent-to-skin spacing. It was found that the gas jet velocity and airbag deflection time resulted in the most significant changes in the maximum skin temperature for the range of parameters studied.
Numerical and analytical modeling of heat transfer into the skin due to airbag development
Eine numerische und analytische Modellierung des Wärmeübergangs in die Haut in Hinblick auf die Entfaltung des Airbags
1996
11 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 21 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Advances in Analytical Modeling of Airbag Inflators
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