"As with frontal airbags, TRW is continuously seeking to develop technologies that adjust according to the unique variables of seat position, passenger size and position, the amount of energy created from the crash pulse and more," said Norbert Kagerer, vice president, engineering, TRW Occupant Safety Systems.
"Side protection is particularly challenging given the very small amount of time in which the crash must be sensed and the airbag deployed – typically in the 15 to 20 millisecond range – so anything we can do to help safely speed up the time in which the airbag contacts the body is potentially very valuable."
The SIAB deploys through a seam in the seat and uses the seat foam as further cushion. According to TRW, tests showed that it delivers improved homogeneous restraint values across body regions and the amount of time between crash sensing and occupant restraint has been lowered.
On the other hand, the 3D airbag designs offer a more rapid contact with the occupant in side crashes and tests have shown significant improvement in restraint performance.
“These new side impact designs demonstrate our continuing commitment to the occupant safety market and we expect that advances in the active safety front that can predict a potentially imminent crash before it occurs will help to further enhance side impact protection," Kagerer concluded.
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