Abstract
There is an increasing pressure to reduce injuries and fatalities by effectively using airbags for side impact and out-of-position impact loading conditions. Numerical simulation, as an essential design tool for airbags, requires accurate models application to the many OOP loading cases. This paper presents a strategy for defining such models together with a set of experiments for model calibration. Starting with an unfolded model of the bag the complexity is gradually increased towards a real OOP model with dummy included. For validation and calibration purposes a new high-speed infrared technique is introduced that measures the airbag temperature during deployment. Also the use of an electronic pressure mat to determine local pressure is suggested.