Joyson Safety Systems has collaborated with CRP Technology for the additive production of airbag housing container.
It’s been a century that Joyson Safety Systems provides safety-critical components to automotive and non-automotive markets. The company designs, manufactures and sells components including airbags, seatbelts, steering wheels and safety electronics.
As part of a project that consists in exploring how to leverage AM for the production of airbag housing container, the team at JSS was looking for the ideal composite material that would have been used for this production. Their goal was to find a material whose properties would have been similar to polyamide with 40% glass fiber reinforcement, which used to be leveraged with conventional manufacturing processes for this fabrication.
The performance of the DAB housing part is extremely essential, due to the fact that it’s a safety component in the vehicle. This means that the Airbag will inflate during a sudden accident within quite a short period of about 30-50 ms (millisecond) to prevent the passenger from any injuries. The DAB housing is holding the entire Airbag system in place so it is also a base essential component for the system.
According to Samer Ziadeh and Daniel Alt from Joyson Safety Systems’ Core innovations team, the function of the DAB housing “is to withstand a high amount of dynamic loads in addition to holding the inflator and the airbag cushion fixed in location during and after the deployment of the airbag system. This load is developed due to the pressure required to inflate the airbag, as a result the large stresses will directly be applied on the airbag system and more particularly on the DAB housing.
The test procedures are normally conducted within a various range of temperatures between -35°C and +85°C.”
Thus given, the material used for manufacturing the part is expected to have sufficient strength, impact resistance and heat stability to perform properly under different testing conditions.
Ziadeh and Alt add, “after running some market analysis in order to find out the most suitable material and process that could deliver the required performance, we came across the Windform® TOP-LINE family of composite material and, specifically, the Windform® SP.”
CRP Technology has developed a specific range of composite materials and has gained extensive experience through various collaborations in the automotive and sport industries.
As a reminder, Windform® SP is made up of polyamide PA grades and reinforced with Carbon fibe. Available in a powder form material, once processed by SLS 3D Printing process, it delivers the desired properties to produce a functional prototype of the DAB housing.
The tests of the part led by the team show good mechanical performance in terms of high strength and impact resistance as well a good thermal stability between a low and high range of temperatures (RT; 23°C, -35°C & 85°C).
Satisfied with the results of this project, Ziadeh and Alt are already envisioning further cooperation with CRP Technology.
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