Tech Briefs
Airbag Deployment FSI Simulation in ADINA using Implicit Time Integration
The problem considered is illustrated in the photo of a laboratory test shown on the left. Of course, airbags are standard in motor cars but their optimum use is still being investigated.
The uniqueness of the analysis described here is that the shell model fully coupled with the Navier-Stokes fluid model is solved using the implicit time integration algorithm in ADINA. This ensures that at each discrete time step considered, iterations are performed to satisfy the fully coupled mass and momentum equations for the solid and the fluid regions at that time.
While there is clearly much benefit in having airbags during an
accident, there is also concern of a risk of injury from a
deploying airbag. This risk applies predominantly to passengers
which are located within the deployment region of the airbag. This
Experiments have shown that the simulation of the airbag behavior, and resulting
loads on the passenger, assuming a constant airbag pressure, i.e.,
without taking the full fluid-structure interaction into account, is not
sufficiently accurate to produce useful results. Therefore, several
attempts have been made in recent years, in various research and
industrial environments, to simulate the complex response in the
The movies show results
obtained by ISKO Engineers AG, München, Germany, using ADINA in an implicit
time integration solution. ISKO performed the simulation as a fully
coupled fluid-structure interaction analysis, with automatic remeshing,
including contact. The run was performed
without any fine-tuning, and without any restart, using about 10 hours on an
AMD Opteron
This solution shows that simulation based on implicit time integration can now be used in
industrial environments to obtain insight into airbag deployment problems —
and this will result in new remarkable possibilities for improved
airbag designs.
For more information on ADINA FSI, please refer to our page on fluid-structure interaction.
![]() |
![]() |