How Do Nissan X-Trail Airbags Work?

The Nissan X-Trail is a popular SUV for many reasons, and it’s regarded as a safe family car to drive on and off road. The Nissan X-Trail price offers a fantastic value proposition for drivers, and it has plenty of active and passive safety tech onboard. One of the most ubiquitous safety measures that have been introduced in recent decades is the humble airbag. The latest airbag units are far more effective than the earlier systems, but how does an airbag work?

The Car Airbag

A car airbag is a legal requirement to drive on our roads, and most cars have multiple airbags to deploy in an emergency situation. The effectiveness of an airbag is a key scoring mechanism in the ANCAP safety tests for Australian cars. Around 45% of car accidents occur where only a single car is involved, and the seatbelts and airbags provide the greatest protection from serious injuries. Every car sold in Australia has to meet a rigorous Australian Design Rules (ADR) mandate to meet safety standards established for chest, heat and upper leg injuries caused by a road traffic accident.

The Evolution of the Airbag

The airbag was first used as an experimental way to offer protection for allied pilots during World War 2. They have come a long way since those days, but the simple underlying principle is unchanged from those earlier models. Essentially, a sensor detects that a collision is occurring, a signal is sent to the airbag, and it rapidly inflates to provide impact protection to the driver or passengers. The airbag is designed to slow down the movement of the vehicle's occupants to avoid them from being thrown against hard metallic surfaces that can cause an injury.

Car Airbag Effectiveness

Many studies have concluded that a car airbag used in conjunction with modern seat belts is the best method to reduce the risks of serious injury or death in a car accident. A study conducted at the Monash University Accident Research Centre in 2012 found that curtain and torso airbags reduce the risks of serious injury or death by as much as 60% from a side impact.

A Typical Front Airbag Deployment

There are satellite sensors on the car exterior that will detect the conditions present during a collision above 24 km/h. The inflator will ignite a chemical mixture to create a rapid pulse of nitrogen gas into the thin nylon airbag folded at strategic points in the cabin. A driver airbag should fully deploy in around 20-30 ms, and a passenger airbag would take 30-40ms. Deployment occurs at around 321 km/h, and it takes around half the time that you would use to blink your eyes. If you have an SUV equipped with a curtain airbag make sure it has a rollover sensor installed. If you’re in any doubt about what your airbags can do, read the owner’s manual for more information.

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