Airbag deployment sensitivity

At what sort of speed collision is an airbag supposed to deploy. My wife had a decent size shunt yesterday, hit her chest on the sterring wheel etc, wrecked the front end, but the airbag didnt go off.

Reply to
paulfoel
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Dunno, but a few years ago someone skidded across the road into the front of my car, they were doing about 60 when they hit and the airbag failed to deploy on my car. The repairer claimed it was because my car wasn't moving at the time. So was that the case in your wife's accident?

Reply to
Steve Firth

Nah. She wasnt going that fast at the time of impact (luckily).

She rear-ended someone. Braked and skidded...

Reply to
paulfoel

Hey, my wife cracked a rib just from doing an emergency stop at low speed.

Reply to
JamesB

if she hit the wheel that would imply that she was not wearing a seatbelt, in which case the airbag may be disabled to reduce injury.

there are all sorts of sensors to decide whether to deploy the airbag or not. Also there are loads of cars about now that should have had the airbags replaced as a service item, so they might not work in any situation at all.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

"Mrcheerful" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Not necessarily. She may be one of these people who thinks that you need to drive with the seat all the way forward, leaning all the way forward, so her nose is damn near touching the windscreen, and her elbows are almost completely bent. God knows why they do that, because it sure as hell isn't comfortable or easy.

Reply to
Adrian

To hit the wheel with her chest does sound as though she was sitting a little too close for comfort or at he point of impact the car was only travelling slowly so the seat belt did not self tighten. I do not know what car it was but most now appear to have auto retracting seatbelts powered by some form of pyrotechnic charge attached to the seat frame and used to pull the belt tight and so prevent the driver moving too far forward. Generally the head is the unrestrained item that moves forward away from the vertical.

Gio

Reply to
Gio

"Gio" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

They'd go off with the windbags, though.

Reply to
Adrian

You are right, they should go off together ! It has been a long day ;-)

Gio

Reply to
Gio

The answers: (Frontal airbags)

1 - Over 18MPH. 2 - Take the maximum braking decelleration that is possible by your car with the driest, most grippy road and best, warm tyres and double it. About there. (More complex algorythms required for real off-road vehicles, not soft-roaders) 3 - Most 'European' SRS-type (non Sodium azide) gas generators have an in-vehicle 'service life' of 10 years. 4 - Realistically, if it didn't deploy, it probably wasn't meant to. It is easy to injure someone with an accidental deployment, so the manufacturers won't want them deploying unless the conditions for protecting the occupants are absolutely correct.

Since I left the industry, vehicle restraint systems have become smarter with more then just grabbers, airbags and retractors. Airbags have become multi-stage (Varying both size and pressure and reducing 'bag slap') and other active restraints are becoming successful in reducing body injury and HIC.

Tell her not to do it again!

Reply to
Brad Thrust

Quite often the pretensioners go off at a lower speed than the airbag.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

Adrian formulated the question :

..or safe in a collision.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

If you've got some joint problems it can be far easier to operate the pedals like that though.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

In message , paulfoel writes

Doesn't just depend on speed but I think it's about 10-14 MPH at impact within a certain tolerance of dead on, I.E. slide sideways into something and the front airbags shouldn't deploy. ISTR +/- 5 degrees from perpendicular is the max for a front airbag. There's quite a few webpages from the manufacturers of the accelerometers they use to sense the collision that will give you much more detail if you look, Analog Devices being one manufacturer (Analog being the American spelling because it's a 'mercan company). They'll give you *far* more detail than you'd ever want.

Reply to
Clint Sharp

They also often go off at a wider angle of impact range than the airbag.

Reply to
Depresion

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