Accidents can be deadly and life-threatening. In many cases, the victims end up in a coma or suffer severe consequences. Automobile industries created airbags to mitigate car accidents and decrease the number of injuries on the victim. It was first introduced in 1971 by the Ford Motor Company and successfully saved around 50,457 souls in the US alone who witnessed such horrific events.
Physics Of Car Impact
Suppose your car is moving at a speed of 60 mph. You have your seat belt on and get a jerk ahead when the vehicle moves, as your body tends to be in motion with the car. Everything seems fine, but after a few minutes, you, unfortunately, hit a truck. When this happens, the vehicle moving at 60 mph suddenly becomes stationary due to the moving truck.
Despite the car’s sudden drop down, its velocity decreases from 60 mph to 0 mph. When this happens, your body is still in the motion in which the car was, i.e., it follows Newton’s second law of motion. Newton’s second law states that the body will come at rest until an external force is applied to it. When the car’s speed slows down immediately, the speed of your body remains the same. Therefore, your body moves in a relative motion leading to impact on the steering wheel, causing bleeding or fracture, and sometimes death.
How Can Airbags Mitigate Anti-Impact Effects?
To prevent your head from being hit on the steering wheel, the airbags act as a shock absorbent. Thus, when you are about to impact the steering wheel, an opposition force is applied by the airbag as it inflates, thereby decreasing the consequences of the heavy impact. Furthermore, the airbags provided a cushioned material. Thus, your head will not collide with the steering wheel’s hard surface but instead comfort you like a soft cushion surface, which means that your body’s speed will decrease gradually and not suddenly.
