Abstract
A study of air bag deployments has indicated that some occupant injury was "unexpected" and might have been related to loading by the inflating bag. Laboratory studies have found "high" loads on surrogates when they are out of a normal seating position and in the path and against an inflating air bag (out- of- position). The current study evaluated laboratory methods for assessing the significance of deployment loads and the interaction mechanics for the situation of an occupant located near or against a steering wheel mounted air bag.