Previous research work has revealed that airbags offer considerable potential benefit to the rider's head and chest in many types of impact, especially those involving head-on impact of motorcycle into the opposing vehicle. However, the airbags used in the research have been either adapted or, in some cases, unmodified car airbag modules. This has led to the identification of some problems that may cause the increase of injury under certain conditions. This paper describes the development and testing of a purpose built airbag restraint system for motorcycles. The system has been developed in structured phases involving mathematical modelling, system manufacture, and then development and evaluation in a series of tests on a Norton motorcycle ranging from static fire to sled tests and finally full scale impacts. A Hybrid III dummy was used throughout the programme and a wide range of parameters were assessed. Results of the sled and full scale impact tests show kinetic energy reduction of between 79% and 100% and low neck injury measurements compared to the tolerance limits. These are discussed in the main body of the paper and the concluding remarks given at the end. Firing of an airbag is an important part of the system and TRL has undertaken research to determine the characteristics of a trigger system by the use of theoretical and experimental data. This includes data obtained from accelerometers mounted on different locations on a motorcycle during "rough riding" tests described in Appendix A. (A)
Abstract