This paper reviews the history of extended bumper designs, including the bumpers of the world-wide experimental safety vehicles, and the additional compatibility need of the larger vehicle to have the more yielding bumper. An airbag bumper design is presented, with airbags on the front, sides, and rear, extended 0.6 meters in the front, or 0.3 meters in the sides or rear, in the appropriate direction when a threat is sensed by near-field radar. In addition, airbags would inflate on each side of the roof when a rollover is sensed, whose crush will reduce the rollover energy. Compartmented airbags, with a low pressure deep airbag against the car and a rigid (high pressure) bumper face covered by a pedestrian soft face for covered by a pedestrian soft face for the front bumper, are used. Preliminary manned crash tests of a prototype airbag bumper system using a swing crash simulator were carried out to a delta V (speed change) of 42 km/h. Crush of these airbags would leave the crush of other vehicle structures outside of the occupant compartment to provide survivable crashes at higher speeds. (A)
Abstract