Abstract:

After the promulgation of C-NCAP 2021， 6 seconds pressure maintaining requirement poses a challenge to the design and development of curtain airbag （CAB）. This paper aims to conduct a study on inflator， as one of the key components of CAB. Based on heat transfer theory with the knowledge of thermodynamics， the deployment process of CAB is divided into three sub-processes， the effects of inflator on the pressure maintaining process of CAB are expounded， and the role and influence of inflator’s key parameters are summed up in detail. It is concluded by theoretical analysis and case study that the pyrotechnic inflator is not suitable to pressure maintaining CAB， cold-gas inflator is weak in product competitiveness， while the hybrid inflator with competitive price can possibly meet the requirements of CAB in pressure maintaining as long as its temperature is lower than the critical one such as 450 K.

Key words: curtain airbag, inflator, 6 s pressure maintaining, critical temperature