Safety Airbags are very important for vehicle safety system. They play an important role in many accidents. They can provide passengers with effective anti-collision protection and can protect their lives at critical moments. A US company has built a functional airbag shell using 3D printing technology.

Based in Auburn hill, Michigan, USA, Junsheng is a global mobile security expert, providing security critical components, systems and technologies for the automotive and non automotive markets. Recently, Junsheng's core innovation team launched a project to explore and explore the additive manufacturing field in cooperation with Italian 3D printing company CRP group, and developed a functional airbag shell. At the same time, it pointed out the possibility and potential of discovering new technologies and materials for airbag shell manufacturing.

Traditionally, the airbag shell is made of polyamide with 40% glass fiber. The airbag system, which needs to be deployed within 30 to 50 milliseconds to prevent injury to the driver, consists of an inflator, an airbag pad, a cover and a housing mounted on the steering wheel. The performance of the system is very important. It is an important safety component of the vehicle. It needs to have enough strength, impact resistance and stability under complex environmental conditions.

When looking for suitable materials for airbag system, the core team of Jonson found that windform Series High-Performance SLS materials developed by CRP technology company had excellent performance.

Windform high performance material is powder material made of polyamide and carbon fiber or glass fiber. The high performance of windform material meets the performance requirements of airbag shell.

The core innovation team has arranged a very strict plan to achieve specific goals, that is, to produce real functional prototype parts in days instead of months with composite materials with mechanical, thermal and performance almost similar; to test the performance of parts in real test environment conditions to check the performance of materials under thermal changes and withstand high strain mechanical stress; and; The time-consuming amount is eliminated and the high mold cost of traditional process is avoided.

It can be divided into three stages: preparation before forming, forming and post-processing. The preparation before molding includes 3D modeling of mold model, STL format conversion, adding support structure, determining process parameters, slicing and other data processing; SLM molding stage belongs to automatic processing, with less manual intervention, and only needs to monitor the working condition of SLM equipment to ensure the normal operation of the equipment; The post-processing of molding includes taking parts, cleaning powder, sandblasting, surface grinding, polishing and other processing.

3D printing technology can realize "zero" waste of production materials in the production process. Because the production process is based on the three-dimensional design of the parts, compared with the traditional "material reduction" processing, the "zero" waste of production materials is realized. The way of thinking of 3D designers will change according to different parts of their thinking. 3D printing technology can be used to manufacture mold with special structure, such as conformal cooling mold, which is difficult to achieve by traditional manufacturing methods.

3D printing technology has great advantages in the production of parts, and is also widely used in racing, aerospace, medical, UAV, electric motorcycle and other fields. I believe that with the development of 3D printing technology, more and more fields will use 3D printing technology, which will bring long-term power for the upgrading and reform of the industry.

Sources from: https://creality3dpro.store/blogs/news