Ford World's First Rear Inflatable Seat Belts - Designer Bags Prestigious Award

It took almost a decade for Srini Sundararajan but they achieved it at last. Srini Sundararajan-A leading Ford designer, is among the few who received #-Link-Snipped-# award for innovative designs. He and his team have worked on developing world's first Rear Inflatable Seat Belt- a feature which will make rear passengers safer. Yes, it is the same rear seat belt design seen in 2011's Ford Explorer.
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It is mostly the younger lot that occupies the rear seat. This leaves the parents in worry because there is a little arrangement of safety unlike the front's air bag cushion which opens on event of an accident. However after a decade long R&D, the team could invent something different, something feasible. #-Link-Snipped-# has an incorporated airbag which is folded in the belt like an accordion. The belt designed in this way is so accurate that within 40 ms of crash, the air bag breaks open and distributes the crash impact on five times more area than that of the passenger's body than a conventional belt. It simply inflates and provides cushion to his shoulders and torso.

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The seatbelt latch is the conduit through which gas enters the airbag.

#-Link-Snipped-# and you will be amazed!

The airbag makes use of cold compressed gas for expansion rather than the exothermic chemical reaction. The gas is filled in the bag from below the seat where it is stored in a cylinder. Now as airbag is attached to the seat belt, it naturally does not need to fill in the void between the bag and the occupant. This gives an ample time for air to be filled in.

Ford hopes to bring this technology to all cars particularly the SUV; sometime in near future. It will take a bit of modification for the non-SUV type of vehicles owing to the limited space in them.  Hence it is only a matter of time that you will see something like this in your backdoor.