University of Extrication: A Look at Future Airbag Systems—Part 2
Subject: Supplemental Restraint Airbag Systems
Topic: Future Airbag Systems, Part 2
Objective: Provide an overview of future supplemental restraint airbag systems
Task: The rescue team shall review the prototype future airbag supplemental restraint systems presented and discuss fire, EMS and extrication challenges presented by these new systems.
In Part 2 of our series on future airbag systems, we look at a very interesting airbag concept designed as a means of increasing occupant protection during a side-impact collision.
We are familiar with seat-mounted side-impact airbags for both front- and rear-passenger outboard seats. We’re also aware of roof-mounted side-impact airbags that deploy in side impacts and rollover crashes. All these airbags deploy inside the vehicle. The new ZF TRW airbag concept deploys outside the car. It is ZF TRW’s “External Airbag” system. This design is unlike any airbag system we have ever had in North America.
The ZF TRW External Airbag senses an impending side collision through the use of side-view cameras and an advanced artificial intelligence computer logic built into the airbag control system. In the fractions of a second BEFORE another vehicle crashes into the side of the car or BEFORE the car slams into a fixed object, the pre-crash External Airbag deploys from under the vehicle and comes up the side structure of the car. Because it is fully deployed before the crash has even occurred, it positions itself outside the door panels to partially absorb some energy of the side-impact collision.
The design utilizes a large airbag that inflates to be the size of the entire door panel. It is specially designed with internal tether straps to control its shape as it deploys. What is so unusual, though, is the fact that this airbag deploys prior to any crash actually occurring, and it deploys upward from beneath the vehicle to cover the outside door panel.
Consider how the presence of this external airbag, deployed or undeployed, will affect rescue tasks, such as jammed door evolutions, B-pillar removal, or any rocker panel/floorpan work.
Read Part 1 here.
Ron Moore
RON MOORE, who is a Firehouse contributing editor, recently retired as a division chief with the McKinney, TX, Fire Department and now serves with Prosper, TX, Fire Rescue. He self-published the Vehicle Rescue 1-2-3 training manual and serves as the forum moderator for the extrication section of Firehouse.com . Moore can be contacted directly at [email protected].
