This paper provides an overview on the key issues of service life investigations of airbags and proposes several research tasks for the near future. More than 80 million airbags are today on the roads, mostly in North America and Europe. Whereas the first installations have been made back in the eighties the overwhelming majority of airbags was introduced during the nineties. As airbags are safety related equipments quality and reliability issues have a very high priority. With an average expected life time of some15 years for automobiles most airbag systems will reach this expectation within the next few years. The question remains open how long airbags really last. Service life and durability of airbags are therefore essential issues of vehicle owner's safety. If these questions cannot be answered properly, liability cases may be expected in the near future. Environmental testing of airbags first was focussed on a limited life span of 10 or 15 years. But today most of the automobile producers envisage an infinite service life. This might be achievable but a lot of aspects have to be considered. Practically all manufacturers apply a durability related environmental testing program. Some of them have use a programme three times consecutively and argue therefore that this will ensure proper operation reliability according to the indefinite service life requirement. Airbag systems include not only electronic units, software and wiring but also the hardware, such as the folded bag, the housing, the plastic cover and last but not least the inflator device and its gas generating substances. All components are subjected to a broad variety of environmental loads during the entire vehicle life span. Mechanical vibrations and climatic conditions in a global operation scenario affect the ageing and wear out process. Deterioration mechanisms may take place in a hidden pattern which may not really stop the airbag deployment suddenly but decreases its performance parameters. The airbag safety research leads to several conclusions: slow ageing may hide performance decrease, vibrations are an important load especially to pressed powder pellets, superimposed loads by vibrations and temperature need to be investigated, and the surveillance of the individual product history is necessary. From the technical point of view there are still some aspects to be discussed, such as the real service life of airbags, the progress of the ageing process, criteria for buying a used car with an airbag, use of non-deployed airbags as cheap spare parts for replacement, requirements resulting from the innovations in airbag technology such as side-bags, roll-over-bags, head-bags and the choice of a simulation program which reflects best the entire life cycle. Other installation locations than the steering wheel, a change in plastic materials used as interior covers and also a change in the operation patterns such as different types of vehicles, increased SUV use with a higher content of off-road driving together with other aspects is to be expected. The Fraunhofer Institute ICT views back on more than 20 years of experience in airbag R&D including testing and the development of testing programs. It cooperates closely with many car manufacturers and supplying companies. It has also advised the ISO working group which has developed the testing standards.
Durability and service life investigation of airbags
Untersuchung der Alterungsbeständigkeit und Lebensdauer von Kfz-Airbags
2004
9 Seiten, 12 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Datenträger
Englisch
Abnutzung , Airbag , Alterungsbeständigkeit , Automobilindustrie , Bewertungsverfahren , Ersatzteil , Gasgenerator , Gebrauchsdauer , Langzeituntersuchung , Lebensdauer , Lebensdauervorhersage , mechanische Beschädigung , Qualitätskontrolle , Sicherheitseinrichtung (Fahrzeuginsasse) , Temperaturbeständigkeit , Überblick , Umweltprüfung , Vibration , Wärmebelastung , Zuverlässigkeit
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