Airbags

In 1968-- Allen Breed first patented Airbags that inflate on impact. These early years models were inflated by compressed gas, and came with problems such as pressure loss, and slower inflation. In the 1970's solid prominent airbags were first introduced, and suffered fewer problems than compressed gas models. In 1975 GM tested airbags on it's government only Chevrolet. Soon after they became options on commercial vehicles, and gradually gained popularity. Since 1998 all new cars had to be equipped with driver and passenger-side airbags. Today airbags are starting to be used in car doors as well as steering wheels.

The purpose of the airbags is that safety since it is the most important issue for most people when purchasing automobiles. So, it isn't surprising that and invention can reduce chances of dying in a frontal crash by up to 30% appealing. As the same implies, an airbags is a bag of air, and is used to cushion the impact in an accident. Since airbags were first used in commercial autos airbags have been valued for their ability to save lives.

It is really important how the airbag works to understand the airbag properly. An automobile airbag consists on three main parts: the bag, the sensor, and the inflation system. The sensor is designed to start a chemical reaction; when a car is in accident. To do this a switch is flipped by a string negative acceleration on a car, equal to hitting a brick wall at about 20 km/hr. The sensor then completes a circuit, which sends a electrical current through the inflation system. This starts the chemical reaction that starts makes the bag burst out of the steering wheel, and fill with nitrogen. The bag moves a about 320 km/hr, and before you make contact with the airbag bag it has already started deflating. The whole process takes about 1/25 of a second.

Modern airbags expand by inducing three chemical reactions simultaneously. The three materials stored for the reaction are: sodium azide, potassium nitrate, and silicon dioxide. When heated the sodium azide decomposes to form sodium and nitrogen gas. The sodium then reacts with the nitrate to produce potassium oxide, sodium oxide, and more nitrogen gas. The final reaction doesn't produce any nitrogen, but instead it uses up the toxic oxides formed in the previous reaction. In this chemical reaction the silicon dioxide, sodium oxide, and the potassium oxide combine from alkaline silicate.