Completely new concept for inflating airbags

Autoliv has announced it has developed a completely new concept for inflating airbags that is more environmentally friendly and more cost efficient than traditional inflator technologies. In addition, it reduces the inflator’s weight by 20 per cent compared to most inflators for the intended application.
March 22, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
4171 Autoliv has announced it has developed a completely new concept for inflating airbags that is more environmentally friendly and more cost efficient than traditional inflator technologies. In addition, it reduces the inflator’s weight by 20 per cent compared to most inflators for the intended application.

The new inflator went into production earlier this year, in a passenger-side airbag for a European manufacturer of premium-brand vehicles. It uses hydrogen and oxygen with inert gas to inflate the airbag, instead of pyro­technic substances. As a result, there are no waste particles at all from the combustion and no effluent gases, not even carbon dioxide. The only side product is regular vapour which, when cooled off, becomes just a few drops of pure water, making the inflator extremely environmentally friendly.

In addition, the mixing of the hydrogen and the oxygen takes place in the textile cushion of the airbag, instead of in a steel vessel as in traditional airbag inflators, which allows for a thinner and lighter steel container and reduces weight and costs.

Autoliv says the weight reduction depends on the original inflator but is approximately 20% compared to most traditional inflators for airbags on the front passenger side. If only a quarter of company’s own needs for such passenger airbag inflators were converted to the new hydrogen/oxygen technology, Autoliv says it would save 1,000 tons of steel every year. Additionally, the vehicles with the new inflator would reduce their fuel consumption by more than eight million litres over the expected life time of the vehicles.

The new APG hydrogen/oxygen inflator will primarily be used in frontal airbags for the front-passenger side where higher gas quantities are required than for other airbags in a vehicle. The next step for this technology is to develop a dual-stage version of the inflator to be able to adjust the gas flow to the severity of the crash and to other parameters. Autoliv says this will be done using two independent ignitors and varying the time lapse a few milliseconds between the ignitions.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Evidence growing for distance-based charging
    January 18, 2012
    The case is growing for an alternative to fuel taxation for funding highway infrastructure. A more sustainable system of mileage-based charging can be established in a way that is acceptable to the travelling public, writes Jack Opiola. Fuel tax - the lifeblood relied on for 80 years to maintain and improve roads and transit systems - is now in considerable jeopardy in the United States. Increased vehicle fuel efficiency and a poor economy already hamper generation of fuel tax revenue; now a recent federal
    Read More
  • TRW develops second generation scalable ACUs
    March 22, 2012
    TRW Automotive Holdings is developing its second generation scalable airbag control unit (ACU) designed for the growing low-cost vehicle and emerging markets. This intelligent solution allows the ACU to be adapted within a vehicle platform to offer two options – standard and enhanced – for models sold within emerging territories and also for those exported to developed markets.
    Read More
  • US fuel economy for light duty vehicles 2022-2025 ‘will reduce consumption and emissions’
    December 16, 2016
    According to researchers at the University of Michigan, the 2022-2025 fuel-economy (CAFE) standards for light-duty vehicles, which were reaffirmed by the EPA on 30 November 2016 in the midterm evaluation of the standards, will substantially reduce future fuel consumption and emissions, even if the future vehicle mix (cars vs light trucks) does not change. However, in addition to these direct benefits, indirect benefits can also be expected via the influence of more stringent standards on the future mix o
    Read More
  • Machine vision takes ITS further than the eye can see
    January 5, 2016
    Vitronic’s John Yalda looks at how machine vision has become an integral part of many ITS deployments and why it complements, rather than replaces, ANPR. New and conventional business concepts like online shopping and mail order business are becoming more established in the cultures of fast-growing economies and increasing the demand for flexibility in the freight transportation and logistics industry. Road transport has become the preferred infrastructure for freight forwarding and several studies predict
    Read More

Highlighted Content