K.

NANDA GOPAL

18UMA21
II B.SC., MATHS

PHYSICS ASSIGNMENT

PHYSICS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

PHYSICS IN AIR BAGS

The Use of the Airbag

The purpose of an airbag is to help the passenger in the car reduce

their speed in collision without getting injured.

Objects in a car have mass, speed and direction. If the object, such
as a person, is not secured in the car they will continue moving in the same
direction (forward) with the same speed (the speed the car was going)
when the car abrubtly stops until a force acts on them.
Every object has momentum. Momentum is the product of a
passenger's mass and velocity ( speed with a direction). In order to stop
the passenger's momentum they have to be acted on by a force. In some
situations the passenger hits into the dashboard or windshield which acts
as a force stopping them but injuring them at the same time.
An airbag provides a force over time. This is known as impulse. The
more time the force has to act on the passenger to slow them down, the
less damage caused to the passenger.

There is a restricted amount of time that the airbag has to act between
when the car hits the other object and the passenger hits the steering
wheel.

● About 15 to 20 milliseconds after the collision occurs the crash

sensors decide whether or not the collison is serious enough to
inflate the airbag (usually 6 - 10 km/h).
● If the crash sensors decide to inflate the airbag it will be deflated at
about 25 milliseconds after the crash.
 ● It takes about 20 milliseconds to inflate the airbag for the person to
land into.
● Around 60 milliseconds the person has made contact with the airbag
and the airbag now starts to deflate.
● The passenger continues to be acted on by the airbag as it is in the
deflation process which takes about 35 to 40 milliseconds.

It is still necessary to wear a seatbelt although all automoblies must

be equiped with an airbag because of a few reasons:

1) The crash sensors do not signal for the airbag to inflate unless the
vechile is moving atleast 6 km/h. Damage can still occur to the passenger
if the collision is of a slower speed. This is were the seatbelt plays an
important role.

2) The airbag located in the steering wheel does not help the passenger in
a collision where another car hits them side on.

3) When the car the passenger is in is backing up and collides the its rear
end with another object the airbag does not help.

With today's technology other airbags are being introduced in addition to

the steering wheel airbag and the passenger airbag. Such airbags that are
being introduced are side airbags and head airbags.
Laws of Motion
Before looking at specifics, let's review our knowledge of the laws of motion. First,
we know that moving objects have momentum (the product of the mass and the velocity of an
object). Unless an outside forceacts on an object, the object will continue to move at its present
speed and direction. Cars consist of several objects, including the vehicle itself, loose objects in the
car and, of course, passengers. If these objects are not restrained, they will continue moving at
whatever speed the car is traveling at, even if the car is stopped by a collision.

Stopping an object's momentum requires force acting over a period of time. When
a car crashes, the force required to stop an object is very great because the car's momentum has
changed instantly while the passengers' has not -- there is not much time to work with. The goal of
any supplemental restraint system is to help stop the passenger while doing as little damage to him
or her as possible.

What an airbag wants to do is to slow the passenger's speed to zero with little or no
damage. The constraints that it has to work within are huge. The airbag has the space between the
passenger and the steering wheeler dashboard and a fraction of a second to work with. Even that
tiny amount of space and time is valuable, however, if the system can slow the passenger evenly
rather than forcing an abrupt halt to his or her motion.

Relation between air bag and Law of Inertia

Physics and Airbags are related together due to Isaac's laws, however only one
of his law related to airbags and it's the 1st law which is Law of Inertia. What is Newton's first
law anyway? According to him, the law is, "An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted
on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and
in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." What does this means?This
means an object will not move and stay still unless a force push or pull it and the same idea
goes with a moving as object as it will go at the same speed and direction unless a force stop
it.
 How does such law related to airbags? Well, since an object will move at
the same direction and speed unless something stop it, this means when you are in a crash,
your body will be thrown out unless you hit something. In most cases, the driver will hit the
steering wheel, the passenger on the front will hit the dashboard, while the other passengers
will hit the seats in front of them. This where airbags comes in handy because as soon as the
airbags reacted to the force produced from the colision, it will inflate itself, preventing the
passengers and driver from hitting anything in front of them.

However, airbags can't work alone as it can always prevent the people from
injury like get thrown out from the car or hit by the car. You may ask how such thing may
happen? It's actually possible, depending on the scenario, like the speed of the cars, size of
vehicles, angle of crash, and etc. For example, if your car get hit from the side, the airbags
won't help you since it's in front of you not the side or if you hit a trunk or heavy rock with a
very fast speed, you will get thrown out. This is why it's recommended to use seatbelt since it
prevent the user to move when a certain amount of force pull the seatbelt.