Concept of an AirbagScreech …..Bang! Crash! Two cars smashed. Sheet metal cries out in anguish, as if to say why'd you do that? Glass shatters in your face, like a million bee stings! If you ever wreck your car going 30 mph into another car or another object like a tree, you'll be thankful that the airbag deployed. History shows controversy rages with the usage of airbags. Research has shown the positive effects that they have on saving lives. An airbag is a safety device assembled in a motor vehicle. It consists of a bag designed to inflate quickly with air, when a vehicle crashes. The airbag keeps your head from hitting the dash or steering wheel and protects the passengers from ...view middle of the document...
The story behind Hetrick is, he and his family had been driving around the Pennsylvania countryside when a large rock in the road caused Hetrick to veer into a ditch. With no restraint systems, Hetrick and his wife were forced to hold their daughter back, stopping her from hitting the dashboard and saving her life" (as quoted from James Scoltock, from Automotive Engineer), before the dash jumped up and pounded their child. That was the catalyst for Hetrick to develop a system to protect drivers and passengers. Hetrick worked with major car manufacturers, but they chose not to invest. Almost ten years later, around 1963 in Japan, a gentleman named Yasuzaburou Kobori, invented an airbag.[ Which technology modern airbags are constructed, he was awarded patents in 14 countries.] In 1967, Allen K Breed had a breakthrough in airbag sensors. He invented a mechanically- based, ball- in-tube component for front end collisions. It's an electromechanical sensor with a steel ball attached to a tube with a magnet that could inflate an airbag under a 30 milli-second timeframe. Mr. Breed later on came up with another important advancement in the field. Specifically the airbag that vents air as it inflates, minimizing the possibility of second hand injuries by reducing the inflated bags rigidity.Here is Picture of Hetrick's airbag (courtesy of James Scoltock of automotive engineer.)original airbagAirbags first appeared in passenger vehicles during the 1970's. The airbags were mostly encased in the steering wheel center. Like hide and seek, it stays hidden from all eyes. Like playing the game, ghost in the graveyard, the bags wait for that one moment, when they can jump out at you. The bag is made of a thin nylon fabric which is folded up into a compartment of the vehicle. Then in 1998, the federal government mandated that all new vehicles come with dual airbags, one for the driver, and one for the passenger. In the 1970's, General Motors' first airbag was known as the AIR CUSHION RESTRAINT SYSTEM (ACRS). In the mid-1970's, the term for airbags was a Supplement Restraint System (SRS). The airbag at the time they were introduced, the cost was estimated at 3,000 dollars per car. You would have thought that was a bazillion dollars back then. Gas prices were also soaring, that caused more Americans to buy cheaper cars with no airbags. The manufacturers didn't want to deal with the added cost of the airbag. They didn't want to get caught holding the bag.Courtesy of EHS safety news in America 1970,s airbagThe purposes of the airbags are to slow a person's forward movement down, as it moves toward the steering wheel or dash pad. Some people experience that in a crash; time slows down or stops for a moment. As in the case of Samatha Lotti, a certified Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist in Chicago, She says, "In that moment everything slowed down as if time were the rubber band of a slingshot being prepared to launch. I saw the world outside my car moving fast while...
