Question

Air bags are designed to deploy in 10 ms. Given that the air bags expand 20 cm as they deploy, estimate the acceleration of the front surfaceof an expanding bag. Express ypur awnser in terms of the acceleration due to gravity, g

Answer 1

As it is given that the air bag deploy in time

$t = 10 ms = 0.010 s$

total distance moved by the front face of the bag

$d = 20 cm = 0.20 m$

Now we will use kinematics to find the acceleration

$d = v_i*t + \frac{1}{2}at^2$

$0.20 = 0 + \frac{1}{2}a*0.010^2$

$0.20 = 5 * 10^{-5}* a$

$a = 4000 m/s^2$

now as we know that

$g = 10 m/s^2$

so we have

$a = 400g$

so the acceleration is 400g for the front surface of balloon