An optimization design of knee airbag for driver protection from inter-city coach frontal impact

In order to reduce the injury risk of driver's lower extremities, a driver knee airbag was developed and optimized by using mathematical models. The influence of eight design parameters of belt and knee airbag on the injuries of driver's lower extremities was analyzed. The result shows that the key influence factors are sensitive to the injuries of lower extremity, including initiation timing of knee airbag, the strap length of knee airbag and area coefficient for the exhaust openings of knee airbag. Based on multi-objective genetic algorithms, an optimization of the knee airbag was conducted in terms of the three factors. After optimization, the injury risk of driver's lower extremities is greatly reduced. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland