There are thousands of vehicles sinking into water such as rivers and ponds due to accident related cases recorded worldwide every year. This is because whenever a vehicle hits water, the safety team like firefighters come to the accident site and jumping into securing actions takes time. In some cases by the time the safety team arrives the vehicle has already sunk to the bottom of the river or pond which causes the passengers to drown. Thus in order to prevent the vehicles from sinking into the water as well as allowing some time for the car to float on the water surface until the rescuers arrive, I have come up with this Self Deploying Inflation System.
In this system, there are four equal volumes of balloons (Yellow colored parts) fixed inside the casing of each door. In order to make them inflate on the right and equal time there are four pressure sensors (Green colored parts) fixed in four different positions which are in the front, on top, bottom and back of the car. These four sensors are fixed on four distinct and strategic locations since the car can flip and sink into the water at any direction. Once the pressure sensor detects a certain amount of pressure, it will send a signal to the balloons and trigger their inflation. Within 5 seconds the complete process of inflation will occurs thus the ballons will not face difficulty during inflation. Furthermore, to inflate these balloons a high pressurized pump will be installed so that the time taken for the inflation process will be shorter and the balloons will get inflated fully in split seconds.
The balloons will be made of sorbothane. Sorbothane is a soft material that is capable of absorbing shock up to 95 %. Thus whenever these balloons come into contact with sharp objects like rocks they won’t burst easily. Thus, the sorbothane will absorb impact from these sharp objects and helps to retain the balloon's original shape. In order to determine effectiveness of sorbothane as a shock absorber, I have tested the sorbothane by setting suitable parameters and did simulation in VoxCad. Besides that, I have designed the balloons with suitable emergency patterns on them. The emergency pattern will glow in the dark by reflecting light from any sources. This helps to spot the location of the vehicles instantly.
For generating my idea into a 3D drawing, I used SolidWorks 2015 software. For the first design, I have designed a mini car by showing the location of all the sensors and balloon before the deflation. This was followed by my second drawing where I have shown the car with all the balloons getting inflated.
As a conclusion, it is a very good idea to be implemented in automobiles as one of the important automotive safety features in upcoming car production so that we can save many people's lives.
ABOUT THE ENTRANT
Name: Keeran Anamalai
Type of entry: individual
Software used for this entry:
SolidWorks and VoxCad
Patent status: none