Search Results

Increasing demand to equip vehicles with airbags in relatively short time is straining restraint engineering resources of OEMs and suppliers. To meet this demand, the time to develop the airbag systems should be minimized, without any compromise to their occupant protection performance. Among the various components that go into an airbag, the design and development of the gas generator is the most time consuming. Usage of one gas generator in a group of cars will cut down on the module development time. Therefore, the possibility of differentiating the inflators based on the severity of crash pulse was investigated. The usefulness of computer simulation software to obtain a good starting system was also evaluated. This paper outlines the procedure followed in identifying the optimum passenger side inflatable restraint system for a group of vehicles. The simulation and sled test matrices used towards this end are discussed and the results compared.

In an attempt to make vehicle restraint systems more effective in protecting occupants, many advanced safety technologies have been introduced. These advanced technologies are mostly adaptive technologies. The ability of a restraint system to adapt itself to crash parameters like crash speed and type, occupant size, and belt-usage status, offers possible enhancements in occupant protection. Designing a restraint system boils down to the determination of the design variables of either the restraint technologies or vehicle interiors. A restraint system of adaptive technologies involves much more design variables than a restraint system containing only load-limited belts and dual stage inflators, possibly posing a challenge to safety engineers. In this paper, a genetic algorithm (GA) tailored for restraint system optimization will be presented.