Airbag technologies help mitigate occupant ejection

TRW Automotive Holdings has developed a range of curtain airbag technologies that the company claims help mitigate the risk of occupant ejection. According to Norbert Kagerer, vice president of TRW's Occupant Safety Systems business, the recent US legislation regarding occupant ejection mitigation underscores the importance of a number of airbag technologies designed to help keep occupants inside the vehicle. For example, TRW has developed one piece woven (OPW) curtain designs that include the unique X-T
April 23, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
601 TRW Automotive Holdings has developed a range of curtain airbag technologies that the company claims help mitigate the risk of occupant ejection.

According to Norbert Kagerer, vice president of TRW's Occupant Safety Systems business, the recent US legislation regarding occupant ejection mitigation underscores the importance of a number of airbag technologies designed to help keep occupants inside the vehicle. For example, TRW has developed one piece woven (OPW) curtain designs that include the unique X-Tether technology. Says Kagerer, “due to this advanced design approach the stiffness of the inflated bag cushion can be increased to mitigate the risk of occupant ejection. Based on TRW's X-Tether OPW cushion technology, the inflated chambers of side curtain airbags will be designed in a seamless way, allowing the curtain airbags to be easily tailored to specific vehicle geometries.

Other key enablers include technologies such as cold gas and hybrid inflators that when combined with advanced bag coatings can assist in keeping the curtain airbags inflated for several seconds.

Related Content

  • Xerox automates HOV/HOT enforcement
    May 27, 2014
    Counting the number of people in a vehicle has always been a manual task, but now Xerox has developed a real-time system to automate the process. Xerox has introduced an automated system that determines the number of passengers in a vehicle, enabling authorities to detect non-qualifying drivers using the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) and High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes. Traditionally HOV/HOT enforcement has entailed local police visually confirming each vehicle has the required number of occupants and chasin
    Read More
  • Using electricity to power road freight
    October 22, 2014
    Next year sees the start of the first real-life electrified road system for transporting freight. Worldwide freight transportation is predicted to double by 2050 but despite expansion of global rail infrastructure only one third of this additional freight transport can be handled by trains. This means that the largest proportion of freight transport will continue to be by road and as a result, experts expect global CO2 emissions from road freight traffic to more than double by 2050.
    Read More
  • Internet-connected cars their functionality and safety challenges
    February 27, 2013
    Internet-connected cars are poised to flood the market in the near future. Pete Goldin considers the functionality they offer, the technology they use and the challenge they represent in terms of driver safety. Many vehicles on the road today offer some sort of inter­net connectivity and experts agree that this capability will become a competi­tive differentiator in the automotive industry in the next few years. The era of the digital vehicle, it seems, has started. “We clearly see that cars in the near f
    Read More
  • When driving becomes the distraction
    November 13, 2015
    utomotive supplier Faurecia and Stanford University's Center for Design Research, have formed a partnership aimed at studying potential behavioural changes in an autonomous vehicle. The organisations will share initial research findings at the Connected Car Expo during the Los Angeles Auto Show. Faurecia and Stanford have identified several important challenges the industry must address to mitigate consumer apprehension to new driving modes: Creating a Confident Occupant Experience; Safely Enabling New
    Read More

Highlighted Content