Car Air bag Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Car Air bag - Assignment Example Often dubbed as the life savers. They have done so over period of time. In the land transport, air bag invention came about in form of a reaction to an accident. When on a routine day a veteran industrial engineer met with an accident and he decided to find the solution to it and make the road driving more secure. Prior to this, fighter jets had used similar form of material in World War 2(Toedt, Koza et al, 2005). In pursuit of his safety concerns, he came up with the idea of air bags for the passengers’ safety in case of any accident. This was year 1953 when the concept was introduced (Hutchinson, p136, 2009). Although the commercial usage and implementation was couple of years away but this was the foundation step towards the ever dependable part of almost all vehicles in years to come. Over period of time various changes have taken place in form of improvements in the structure, working and performance of the air bags. The modern air bags are more effective and reliable. I n pursuit of safety for drivers and passengers, various measures were taken into consideration and the possibility of air bag was also given a thought. After its implementation, over years of research has shown that the air bags reduce the chances of serious mishap, damage to critical body parts and subsequent death by nearly 30 percent (Congress, 1997). Working The positioning of air bags have taken different places, at one time they were part of the side doors, with time improvement in its designs have also taken place and nowadays they are hidden inside the front body and appear only in times of severe jolt suffered by the car in cases of accidents. The bag pops up between the passenger and the steering of the car. It brings about the inertia in to control and either nullifies or minimizes the movement of the driver in order to reduce the impact to almost minimum and at the same time providing a soft punch to the passenger. Components The air bag consists of number of components, namely the bag itself which is constituent of nylon; it is accompanied by the most important part, the sensor or the trigger. The sensor creates a trigger like effect and it is based on the principle of determining the stress exerted and then it pushes the bag outside to bring it ahead of the steering. Source: (Ozzie, 2012) The triggering effect is created by the chemical components like potassium nitrate and others which inject energy in to the punch bag and subject to the external pressure, bursts right into the face. It also contains nitrogen gas that is sufficiently powerful enough to create an impact when needed. The response time needed by air bags need to be highly accurate and they must respond within milliseconds. Triggering can be either electrical or mechanical in nature. The modern bags are mostly electrical in nature that are equipped and established through electric circuitry. The circuit breaking results in explosion of the air bag. While the mechanical trigger rely on the inertia and minimizing of movement and impact. In the mechanical case, the bag does not rely on the circuitry. The mechanical form of triggering is equally efficient to the electrical triggering. The good thing about its architectural design is the presence of diagnosis kit. Which self checks the performance and proper functioning of the bag and its components. Different types of Airbags The air bags come fitted in different forms. Some are placed inside the