Concept Design of an A-Pillar Mounted Airbag for Pedestrian Head Protection

Accident investigations have shown that in pedestrian-versus-vehicle accidents, windshield edges, A-pillars, cowls are the main sources for severe head injuries due to their high stiffness. To mitigate head injury severities, it is necessary to improve the safety performance of these structures. An A-pillar mounted airbag system (AMAS) was devised with the aim to prevent head from directly impacting against stiff structures such as A-pillars, windshield frames and edges. The airbags of the AMAS are installed inside A-Pillars. When a car strikes with a pedestrian, the airbag will break the A-Pillar cover and deploy along the whole APillar to cover the stiff structures. In this study, the safety performance that can be provided by this system was evaluated by mathematical simulations. A finite element (FE) Ford Taurus car model and an EEVC headform model were used to simulate the pedestrian headform tests as proposed by EEVC. FE airbag models were developed and the influence of airbag parameters, including airbag type, inflow mass rate, vent size and deploy timing, were investigated by mathematical simulations. The safety performance of the AMAS was also evaluated by an FE human head model. The results show that this system can greatly reduce the head injury severity in case a pedestrian head impacts with A-pillar areas.