Maximum number of airbags in a car. How many airbags should a car have? The main elements of the Airbag system are

An airbag is one of the main elements of a car. It is located in the cabin and “comes to life” as soon as the car encounters an obstacle. This equipment can prevent many injuries during an accident.

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Characteristics of airbags

Below we will talk in more detail about all technical parameters and the characteristics of this “inflatable” protection.

Purpose and functions

The main concern of an airbag in a car is to take care of the driver and passengers. It prevents vehicle occupants from colliding with the dashboard, windows, and other objects that could cause harm. If there is a belt and a cushion in the car, injuries will be minimized.

Usually it is located in the steering hub, and opens in 15-30 milliseconds, just at the time when the car has already collided with an obstacle, but the driver has not hit the steering wheel.

It consists of the following elements:

inflatable bag made of dense elastic material;
control lamp;
a sensor that instantly responds when a car collides.

Operating principle

The device works like this:

The car encounters an obstacle on its way.
In the event of a collision, a sensor located in the airbag is activated. The entire system “wakes up” and begins action.
A signal is sent from the system to the detonator and it provokes the filling of the “bag” with gas, which is under pressure. It instantly fills with gas and increases in size.
In a split second it opens up, taking the blow. Having suppressed it, it deflates and falls off (author - Sergey Gromov).

Advantages and disadvantages

protects the chest and head;
it is not an eyesore and is invisible in the cabin;
you don't need to look after her.

sometimes it can work by itself;
makes a loud noise when filling;
The driver's airbag does not operate if the car overturns or there is a side collision.

Types of airbags

Let's look at the different types of these protective equipment in cars.

Frontal

From the name you can understand that this device is located at the front and is designed to protect people in the car. When the car hits an obstacle with its hood, a sensor is activated and the front airbags immediately pop up. They reduce the risk of impact, prevent fractures and serious injuries to internal organs.

They are located on the driver and passenger sides and have different sizes. The steering wheel with the airbag is located much closer than the panel from which the driver's side airbag emerges. It has a button that is used when a child is sitting in front.

In addition, you need to follow the rules, otherwise it will do harm. A person sitting in the passenger seat should not hold objects in their hands or rest their knees on the area where the device is located.

Front side

They are not as popular as the previous ones and are mainly installed on expensive cars. The purpose of these pillows is simple: they protect the shoulders, sides and pelvic bones in the event of a side impact with a vehicle. They are installed on both sides of the front seats. Side cushions also come with some safety precautions, such as avoiding keeping sharp, bulky objects in your pockets. When opened, they can harm a person.

Curtains

This type is designed to protect the head of the driver and passengers in the event of a side collision.

Curtain airbags can be of two types:

for front seats;
for front and rear seats.

Curtains are installed on the side of the car roof, above the windows and in the side pillars. They open so as to cover the side windows and prevent injuries from shrapnel and injuries from hard objects.

Knees

This type is designed to protect the legs and, in particular, the kneecaps when the car hood collides with an obstacle. It's at the bottom dashboard under the steering wheel. If the knee cushion is deployed, it is necessary to calculate the adjustment of the driver's seat, because the legs must be at least 10 cm from the bottom of the dashboard.

Rear side

This type is designed for rear passengers and protects the shoulders, pelvic bones and sides. They are mainly located in the lower part of the side trim of the cabin. Such safety devices are not particularly popular and are produced in small quantities.

Security measures

It can be concluded that airbags can occasionally not only be beneficial, but also cause harm. This happens when used incorrectly.

To avoid injury you need to follow the rules:

Between man and safe device There must be a distance of at least 25 cm, otherwise a traumatic situation will arise.
If the child is in front, he must sit in a special chair. It should be pulled back as far as possible. If the child is too small, he should be in the back seat in a special seat, carefully secured to avoid injury. If there is an airbag on the passenger side of the dashboard, then the child should not be seated in the front.
Passengers inside must wear seat belts. If the car hits something in its path, the belt will slow down the body's speed.

If you use the device correctly, it will protect you from injury, and perhaps even save your life.

Ways to check functionality

Sometimes it is simply necessary to check a device that will protect you from injury or death in case of danger, for example, if the car has been in an accident or was under repair. Sometimes when buying a car you need to study the interior and pay special attention to the Airbag inscriptions. This performs a visual check. If there are visible scuffs or scratches on the lettering and panel, there is a good chance that the cushion has been replaced.

To find out whether it is in proper shape, it is necessary, after inspecting the interior for damage, to inspect the safety device itself. You can remove the cover from the steering wheel, because the airbag is activated instantly in any more or less serious collision.

The coating of the inflatable bag must be free of scratches and cuts. The gas generator that fills the device with gas should also not be damaged.

Except visual inspection you can also use electronic verification, built into the dashboard. In the event of a malfunction, a light will flash on the dashboard, which literally screams that driving the car is unsafe.

If you see a fault or scratches, you can draw a disappointing conclusion that the seller changed the settings in the dashboard before the sale in order to hide the breakdown from a potential buyer. Some sellers are trying to sell cars with already triggered and damaged safety devices.

Photo gallery

Below are photographs that help you clearly see how the airbag works.

Video “How to determine if an airbag will deploy?”

The birthplace of airbags, as you might guess, is the USA. Back in the early 50s, engineers John Hendrick and Walter Linderer patented an inflatable bag that was triggered in the event of an accident. True, for quite a long time designers puzzled over a sensor that could send a signal in the event of a collision. The solution was found in 1967, when inventor Allen Breed proposed a ball sensor that responded to a very sudden change in speed that could only occur during an impact. Breed sold the technology to Chrysler, but the concern's worst competitors became pioneers in the mass production of cars with pillows.

However, this will happen only four years later. And while automakers were busy implementing the technology, congressmen entered the arena. The plans were ambitious: wanting to show voters that they cared about their lives, deputies passed a law obliging all production cars to be equipped with airbags by 1973. The idea was openly populist, but under pressure from the authorities car companies were forced to speed up development.

One after another in 1971, the Ford Taunus P7 and Oldsmoblie Toronado were released, equipped as an option with inflatable bags for the driver and passenger. True, back then the airbags were positioned as an alternative to seat belts, and it soon became clear that the idea was a failure. Americans were afraid of pillows and did not want to overpay for them. Several deaths added fuel to the fire - drivers died of heart attacks, shocked by the loud pop with which the airbags inflated.

Looking ahead, it is worth mentioning that airbags are American cars became mandatory only in 1998. And in 1981, the first European car with inflatable bags appeared.

He became Mercedes-Benz S-class in the then latest W126 body, which allowed it to be called the most safe car in the world according to the American Institute for the Study of Road Mortality.

In the 90s, when tests proved the effectiveness of airbags, they began to be used everywhere. In Russia they are still not mandatory, perhaps also because it is simply not cost-effective to install them on a number of archaic models. Gone into history VAZ « classic » And « Samara » .

The last of the Mohicans remains the Lada 4x4, better known as the Niva - you cannot install airbags on it at any cost. But Granta, Kalina, Priora and Largus have them in their “base”, which gives us hope for a bright future.

How are modern pillows arranged?

There is nothing particularly clever in the design of the pillow itself - it is a bag made of thin fabric (usually nylon). Often these bags have several chambers. For example, the passenger front is divided into a larger lower section for the body and a smaller one for the head. The bag is placed in a compact capsule and sprinkled with talcum powder or starch to prevent caking. It is this powder that sometimes flies in the air after the system is activated.

Initially, it was clear that the airbags had to be inflated very quickly - in 20-50 milliseconds. Since the 70s of the last century, the only possible means for this, a small explosion is left, as a result of which gas is released, which fills the space inside the bag. The explosion is provided by a squib, which detonates a piece of fuel made from sodium azide (not to be confused with oxide!), potassium nitrate and silicon dioxide. The explosion produces harmless, non-toxic nitrogen. There are also hybrid filling units, in which the charge of solid fuel is just a “plug” plugging a cylinder of compressed nitrogen. The force of the explosion is lower, and the noise is also less.

In modern cars, the command to fire the airbags is given by an electronic control unit, which collects information from impact sensors. There are a lot of sensors, and the computer can distinguish in which direction the blow fell. Therefore, if the car is hit on the side, the front airbags will not work. More advanced systems also take into account the force of the impact and even the weight of the passenger, adjusting the amount of gas entering the airbag and, accordingly, its size.

Where are the airbags located?

Traditionally, frontal airbags are located in the steering wheel housing for the driver and in the dashboard for the passenger. Side airbags can be placed in different places: in or above the doors, in pillars or seat backs. Often there are combined solutions: for example, a curtain shoots out from a slot above the door to protect the head, and a second lower pillow shoots out from the chair to protect the chest, abdomen and pelvis.

The legs are protected from contact with the hard plastic of the dashboard by a knee pad, which is “wired » under the steering wheel. In 2009, Toyota also introduced central airbags - they are located in the seat back or in the armrest and prevent injuries that could be caused to each other by the driver and passenger in a side impact.

For motorcyclists and cyclists

In 2006, the first motorcycle with an airbag debuted, the big Honda Goldwing chopper. The pillow is built into its front panel and is generally similar to a car one. So far, the technology has not found widespread use among competitors.

Motorcyclists, especially extreme riders, prefer…suits with pillows to “automotive” solutions. The capsule with it is located on the neck; when it falls, it opens like a collar, and instead of hard asphalt, the biker hits his head on soft fabric.

And for pedestrians too

If you have a particularly tender love for pedestrians, then your car is a Volvo V40 Cross Country. This is the only car on Russian market(and also the first production one in the world), which is equipped with an airbag for pedestrians. It is located under the hood and shoots, lifting it and covering almost the entire windshield. Unfortunately, this device does not protect you from broken legs (the edge of the hood and the bumper remain rigid), but it does protect you from a traumatic brain injury.

But how does the V40 understand that a collision occurred with a pedestrian, and not, say, with a pole? A thermal imager is responsible for this, which measures the temperature of the object the car is approaching from a distance. In addition to the unique airbag, Volvo also has a City Safety system with forced emergency braking. So, ideally, a pedestrian should not need a pillow at all.

Some statistics

Research into the effectiveness of airbags peaked in the early 2000s. Pillows have been widely adopted since the early 90s, and a decade later, researchers have a basis to study.

In 2001, the American Administration for road safety(NHTSA) concluded that air bags saved more than 8,000 lives in their first decade. In 2009, NHTSA calculated that when seat belts are worn, frontal airbags reduce the risk of death by 11%.

In 2003, doctors Eliza Braver and Sergei Kirichenko studied accident data in the United States in 1999-2001, and came to the quite expected conclusion that the presence of side airbags in a car significantly reduces the risk of death in a side collision. Statistics were collected exclusively on then-modern cars of the 1997-2002 model years.

And now the specifics: over two years, 1,800 people died in side collisions in cars without side airbags at all, 105 people died in cars equipped only with torso airbags, and only 35 people died in vehicles with inflatable curtains to protect the head. It turns out that the presence of side airbags reduces the risk of death in an accident by one or two orders of magnitude. A good reason to think about the configuration of your car.

It is worth noting that any statistical analysis is something conditional. It is always difficult to identify the exact cause of a person’s death in an accident, and even more so to understand why the person who survived the accident did not die. In this case, full-scale tests of cars with airbags, that is, crash tests, are very useful.

Pillow tests

Airbags need to be tested in practice, so the most objective criteria for evaluating them are the results of crash tests. As you know, there are several national standards in the world. In particular, the European Union uses the Euro NCAP protocol, the USA uses IIHS and NHTSA, Japan uses JNCAP, and China uses C-NCAP. The latter, as you might guess, is the most liberal of all.

Sometimes crash tests helped identify specific deficiencies in airbags. So, in 1998, when a BMW 5 Series in the back of an E39 was crashed using the Euro NCAP method, it became clear that the airbags responded too slowly. The shock sensors and airbag control unit were modernized, and only after that the “five” went on sale.

Video: autoblog.com

In 2012, the American organization NHTSA, already known to us, conducted separate bench tests... of counterfeit airbags. The video they published following the tests is impressive. Non-original cheap pillows, which are often offered at car repair shops as a replacement for expensive original ones, do not open completely or even explode.

Another interesting test involves child seats. As you know, if a child is sitting in the front seat in a chair, the passenger airbag must be turned off, otherwise it will hit the baby painfully in the face. Which, in fact, was proven by researchers during a crash test.

Video: youtube.com/user/Avtodeti

The Russian experience is also interesting. Thus, the Autoreview magazine tested the Lada Kalina using its own methodology, comparing the results for identical cars with and without airbags. The first Kalina scored 8.4 points out of 16 possible, and the second - 5.6 points. Thus, the main role in ensuring the safety of a person inside a car is played by the design of the car: in particular, how well the impact force is absorbed and how it is distributed throughout the body. A pillow is an auxiliary thing.

Video: youtube.com/user/oxion812

What if it doesn't work?

At the beginning of 2014, the American automobile publication Automotive Information conducted its own study of the federal database accident data and concluded: every year in the United States, about 3,400 people die in frontal collisions due to the fact that the airbag does not deploy. As we have already said, there can be no clear conclusions here, but the fact remains: the airbags may not work.

Common reasons include errors in the control unit, damage to the wiring, old age of the pillows themselves (the bag itself can simply become caked due to age), as well as... lack of power! In particular, the researchers were able to prove 12 cases where the airbag did not deploy due to a problem in the ignition system Chevrolet Cobalt and the companion Saturn Ion. Both of these models are subject to a recall campaign. Russians don’t have to worry about this: our Chevrolet Cobalt has nothing in common with the American one except the name.

Do I need to wear a seat belt?

As we already know from history, airbags could not become a replacement for seat belts. And yet, some irresponsible drivers drive without seat belts in the hope that in the event of an accident, the airbag will save their life. But in reality, in the absence of belts, the pillow turns from a helper into a deadly enemy.

The fact is that in the event of a collision, the airbag flies out towards the driver or passenger at a speed of 200 to 300 kilometers per hour. If a person is not wearing a seat belt, he or she runs the risk of coming face to face with an inflated airbag and receiving a blow more severe than from a collision with the steering wheel or dashboard.

The person must be at least 25 centimeters away from the place where the pillow flies out. Therefore, it is vital to always buckle up, and also remember to turn off the passenger airbag if a child seat is installed in the front seat.

Shot pillows

An airbag is a purely disposable thing. If it fires, you will have to replace the entire module along with the bag and filling unit. The cost of such a module is usually quite high. For example, on Ford Focus 2 driver airbag module costs about 21,000 rubles, and on Opel Astra H – 44,000.

Photo: by alegri / 4freephotos.com

Therefore, it is not at all surprising that when a car is sold after an accident, they install external plugs instead of airbags and reflash the control unit in such a way that computer diagnostics didn't show any errors. It is impossible to reliably determine whether the pillow “shot” or not. So when buying a used car, pay attention to other signs of accident involvement, such as repainted body parts and rust.

Seat covers and side cushions

Owners of cars with side airbags should remember that the “wrong” cover placed on the seat can reduce the effectiveness of the airbags. What kind of case is “correct” in this case? The one that has a test certificate. These tests are carried out by very few car seat cover manufacturers, but they can be found on the Russian market. After all, if you fork out for a car with an advanced system passive safety, does it make sense to save on accessories?

What's next?

So, over the past 30 years, airbags have gone from being a fancy accessory expensive cars like the Mercedes-Benz S-class has become an absolutely mandatory attribute of any modern car, including in Russia (with rare exceptions). A modern driver will think ten times before getting into a car without airbags.

One can only guess how pillows will develop in the future. Most likely, they will simply become even more widespread: production technology will gradually become cheaper, and the day is not far off when we will see budget cars With full set pillows, including knee pillows and curtains. Perhaps designers will pay more attention to the safety of rear passengers, and, of course, Volvo's pedestrian protection technology should be widely used.

Car manufacturers try to take care of their customers and equip cars not only with reliable seat belts, but also with airbags (also called airbags or airbags). At the same time, in modern cars there can be from 2 to 7. What are airbags in a car and how do they work? Let's try to figure it out.

What is an "airbag"

The airbag design is quite simple. Conventionally, the product can be divided into three components: a bag, shock sensors and a gas generator (inflating system).

Bag

It is a thin, multilayer nylon shell (no more than 0.4 mm thick) capable of withstanding large short-term loads. The bag is located in a special tire, which is covered with a special lining made of fabric or plastic.

Shock sensors

These components are typically located at the front of the machine. They are responsible for the timely deployment of the car's airbag, that is, it is these sensors that activate it immediately after a collision with an object at a speed of more than 20 km/h. However, the impact force is also taken into account, so the air bag can operate even in standing car, if the collision was strong enough.

Sensors are installed in two types:

Impact (records the impact that falls on the body).
Sensors passenger seat(thanks to them, it is possible to exclude the system from triggering if there is no one else in the car besides the driver).

In addition to sensors, accelerometers are also often additionally installed in the system (they help determine the position of the car).

Gas generator

Initially, these elements were equipped with only one squib, which made it very difficult to regulate the gas supply to the airbag based on the size and position of the person sitting in the car. However, modern airbags have 2 squibs. The first (main) releases 80% of the gas (the so-called soft landing), the second is activated only if the collision was too strong and the person needs a harder cushion.

All 3 components of the airbag must be in good working order, only in this case can it be guaranteed that the protective elements will work flawlessly.

How does the airbag work?

The operating principle of airbags can be divided into several stages:

Collision vehicle with another object.
Automatic activation of electronic sensors that trigger the following mechanism.
The system receives a signal from the electronic control unit and the detonator (charge from sodium acid tablets) is activated, as a result of which the gas (argon or ozone) is heated and under high pressure(up to 250 mPa) breaks out. However, before this, it passes through a special metal filter and cools.
The pillow suddenly fills up and opens 30 milliseconds after the triggered sensors send a signal.

The driver or passenger of the car hits his head on the airbag, which significantly dampens the energy of the resulting impact. This results in only 10% of the residual impact per person.
The pillow “falls off.”

When talking about how airbags work, it's worth considering design features car, since some cars have only 2 “airbags”, while in others emergency elements are installed in almost every plane.