Lockheed Martin Defense Systems has developed and tested a Liquid Generant Inflator for passenger-side air bag modules. Innovative designs have been incorporated to tailor the gas generation rate in such a manner as to produce a gentle deployment of the air bag, reducing bag 'break-out' deployment velocity and bag slap, and to produce rapid shutdown of gas generation to reduce occupant rebound. The current Production Intent Design produces a linear pressure rise in ballistic tank tests, a consequence of the completely neutral burning characteristics of the liquid generant. Temperature insensitivity of performance is observed going from extreme cold conditioning at -40 deg C to ambient environments (21 deg C). The effluent is free of particles that can burn and penetrate the bag fabric and cause adverse respiratory effects in vehicle occupants (100 % gas yield), the effluent is smokeless and non-toxic, and the gas temperature does not melt or burn bag fabric. The liquid generant itself has favorable environmental and toxicological properties and satisfies the requirements of high temperature thermal aging tests. Part of the development effort included the generation of PC-based computer software to guide the design of the gentle deployment Liquid Generant Inflator. This model provides effective simulation of the combustion process and gas discharge process and has been baselined against inflator internal pressure-time data and 100 liter ballistic tank performance (pressure, gas temperature) data from a variety of test conditions. It has served as a useful diagnostic tool for analysis of experimental data, as well as a predictive tool in design tuning for application to a variety of platforms. The gentle deployment Liquid Generant Inflator design lends itself quite nicely to a fully adaptive, infinitely variable output gas generator for real-time adjustment to a variety of passenger configurations and crash scenarios. It offers a promising solution for the protection of unbelted children and small adults, as well as satisfying current FMVSS 208 requirements for an unbelted male in a 30 mph head-on collision.
The Lockheed Martin liquid generant air bag inflator: A prescription for enhanced safety of air bag systems
Der Lockheed Martin Flüssiggasgenerator - Ein Rezept für fortschrittliche Airbagsysteme
1996
17 Seiten, 10 Bilder, 2 Tabellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996
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