Airbag Technology

Since Ralph Nader's seminal book "Unsafe at Any Speed" came out over 40 years ago, seat belts, padded dashboards, collapsible steering columns, improved bumpers and other safety features have become standard fare on cars and trucks. After seat belts, the most significant advance in automobile safety has been the airbag.

Airbags are gas-inflated cushions that rapidly discharge from compartments hidden in steering columns, dashboards, roof rails, doors and seats, hyper-inflating to protect a vehicle's safety-belted adult driver and passengers.

Driver and front-passenger airbags have been required in cars by the federal government since the 1998 model year (since 1999 for light trucks). Mercedes-Benz first put airbags in all its models in 1986.

By the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's own estimates, airbags saved nearly 3,000 lives last year, bringing their total to 28,000 lives saved by airbags through the end of 2008. NHTSA calculates that using a seat belt and having an airbag reduces the risk of death by 61 percent. Simply put, this combination is the most basic and effective safety precaution available.

In recent years, an armada of airbags has been added to cars and trucks. Some rides, such as the BMW M3, now possess as many as eight of the nylon inflatables.

Side-impact airbags, which Volvo debuted in the mid-1990s, are one of these bonus bladders. Variations shield the pelvis, chest and head and can deploy from the door, seat or roof of a vehicle. Side curtain-type airbags protect the head and, in some models, remain inflated for up to five seconds during rollovers. BMW was an early curtain pioneer.

Side airbags not only help passengers in more rollover-prone sport utility vehicles, but they also protect occupants of smaller cars from these same light trucks.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is a nonprofit trade group that crash tests vehicles and conducts related research. The organization's chief operating officer, Adrian Lund, says of SUVs, "When these things hit you on the side if you're in a car, basically their hood is right at your head."

Side airbags can provide a cushion between bodies and intruding SUVs. "We've seen about a 45 percent reduction in fatal injuries for vehicles that are equipped with side airbags," Lund says.

NHTSA is working on upgrading side-impact safety standards for all passenger vehicles. Starting Sept 1, 2009, the agency will phase in new side-impact standards that will require side airbags as standard equipment.

Other airbag innovations continue apace. General Motors was the first to introduce dual-depth passenger-side airbag. These bags inflate to different girths, depending on variables such as seat position, the severity of the crash and whether the seat belt is clasped or not.

Dual-stage airbags, present on several new Volvo models, work slightly differently. With this technology, a sensor measures the severity of a crash and seat-belt usage to adapt airbag inflation speeds; a severe crash results in a full, rapid deployment, while a fender-bender triggers a slower, 70-percent inflation.

BMW has also been at the forefront of advanced airbag technology. Its 7 Series was an early adopter of knee airbags, which protect the legs and help the driver avoid sliding down and forward during a crash.

History of the Automobile

The history of the automobile begins as early as 1769, with the creation of steam-powered automobiles capable of human transport In 1806, the first cars powered by internal combustion engines running on fuel gas appeared, which led to the introduction in 1885 of the ubiquitous modern gasoline- or petrol-fueled internal combustion engine. Cars powered by electricity briefly appeared at the turn of the 20th century but largely disappeared from commonality until the turn of the 21st century, when interest in low- and zero-emissions transportation was reignited. As such, the early history of the automobile can be divided into a number of eras based on the prevalent method of automotive propulsion during that time. Later periods were defined by trends in exterior styling and size and utility preferences.

Pioneer inventors
German engineer Carl Benz, inventor of numerous car-related technologies, is generally regarded as the inventor of the modern automobile. The four-stroke petrol (gasoline) internal combustion engine that constitutes the most prevalent form of modern automotive propulsion is a creation of German inventor Nikolaus Otto. The similar four-stroke diesel engine was also invented by a German, Rudolf Diesel. The hydrogen fuel cell, one of the technologies hailed as a replacement for gasoline as an energy source for cars, was discovered in principle by yet another German, Christian Friedrich Schönbein, in 1838. The battery electric car owes its beginnings to Hungarian Ányos Jedlik, inventor of the electric motor, and Gaston Planté, who invented the lead-acid battery in 1859.

Steam Automobiles
Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built the first Steam-powered vehicle around 1672, designed as a toy for the Chinese Emperor, it being of small scale and unable to carry a driver or passenger but, quite possibly, the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile')
Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles are thought to have been devised in the late18th century.Nicolas-JOshep cugnot demonstrated hisfardier à vapeur, an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor, in 1770 and 1771. Cugnot's design proved to be impractical and his invention was not developed in his native France, the centre of innovation passing toGraet Britain. By 1784, William Murdoch had built a working model of a steam carriage in Redruch, and in 1801 Richard Trevithick was running a full-sized vehicle on the road in Camborne.Such vehicles were in vogue for a time, and over the next decades such innovations as handbrakes, multi-speed transmissions, and better steering developed. Some were commercially successful in providing mass transit, until a backlash against these large speedy vehicles resulted in passing a law, theLocomotive Act, in 1865 requiring self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This effectively killed road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century, as inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railway locomotives. The law was not repealed until 1896, although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.
In Russia in the 1780s, Ivan Kulibin started working on a human-pedalled carriage with a steam engine. He finished working on it in 1791. Some of its features included a flywheel, brake, gearbox, and bearing, which are also the features of a modern automobile. His design had three roadwheels. Unfortunately, as with many of his inventions, the government failed to see the potential market and it was not developed further.The first automobile patent in the United States was granted to Oliver Evans in 1789. In 1805, Evans demonstrated his first successful self-propelled vehicle, which not only was the first automobile in the USA, but was also the first amphibious vehicle, as his steam-powered vehicle was able to travel on roadwheels on land, and via a paddle wheel in the water.Among other efforts, in 1815, a professor at Prague Polytechnich, Josef Bozek, built an oil-fired steam car. and Walter Hancock, builder and operator of London steam buses, in 1838 built a four-seat steam phaeton.Electric automobilesIn 1838, Scotsman Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of 4 miles per hour (6 km/h). In England, a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of rail tracks as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847. Between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain), Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.

What is a Automobile ??

An Automobile or Motor car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods.However, the term automobile is far from precise, because there are many types of vehicles that do similar tasks. As of 2002, there were 590 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people).Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; they burn over 260 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.