How do Airbags work?

Airbags are passive restraints which activate when a vehicle goes into an accident. Gone are the days when seat belts were considered a safety feature (if the person tied it up), airbags are the current trend in safety feature which gets activated automatically at the appropriate time when needed.

All new vehicles in India are bound to have front airbags for the driver and passenger as mandatory feature, but many automotive giants have gone beyond this.
   

Photo by Dietmar Janssen from Pexels

How they work?

An airbag system consists of a control module, multiple sensors and at least one airbag. The sensors are placed in the areas where the chances of impact are maximum and the control unit of airbag monitors the data from the accelerometers, wheel speed sensors and other sources.

When condition of impact occurs, the control unit activates the airbags.

The first law of motion comes into the action in this process as the person's body in the car moving is in motion and as the car suddenly stops or decelerate body still tends to be in motion until something stops it. Thus, seat belts are not so effective in the overall safety as the head tends to go forward in direction.

Each individual airbag is deflated and packed into a compartment that is located in the steering wheel, dashboard or elsewhere. Airbag also contains chemical propellants and initiator devices that have ability to ignite the propellants.

When the control unit predetermines the situation, it is capable of activating one or more initiator devices. The chemical propellants are then ignited, which steadily fills the the airbags with nitrogen gas. The process is so fast that it takes about 20 to 30 milliseconds to inflate the airbags.

The airbags are single use devices that means they have to be replaced after it has been deployed once as the entire supply of propellants is burned through to inflate the bag.     

Source: pixabay.com

How much safe?

Airbags are Supplementary Restraint System(SRS) that is they aid in providing extra safety to car but this does mean that the car becomes invincible. Other key features also aid in providing safety such as ABS(Anti-Lock Braking System), ESP(Electronic Stability Program), EBD(Electronic Brake force Distribution) and many more. Also the build quality of car makes a strong case. Airbags do saves millions of lives but it cannot guarantee the safety of life. It is every individual's duty to obey the rules and maintain sedate speed.