Improving safety of car seat covers to reduce injury risk

Professor Rajiv Padhye and his research team developed a new manufacturing method for removable car seat covers that ensures deployment of side airbags, reducing risk of fatality or injury following side-impact collisions.

Padhye is Director of RMIT’s Centre for Materials Innovation and Future Fashion (CMIFF). Drawing on previous experience working in the textile industry, his research in textile manufacture includes high performance fabrics, colouration and finishing of textiles, and fabric processing.

Padhye was approached by Ray Pawsey, Managing Director of the car seat cover manufacturer Who-Rae, to help solve a problem with the design of removable car seat covers. Pawsey was concerned that removable car seat covers did not always rupture to enable the release of side airbags, posing a safety threat to drivers and passengers.

Professor Rajiv Padhye, Centre for Materials Innovation and Future Fashion

Padhye, together with colleagues Dr Arun Vijayan and Dr Amit Jadhav, undertook laboratory research to test the reliability of conventional removable seat covers, discovering that as many as 40% of the removable seat covers tested impeded side airbag release. With this evidence, Pawsey alerted the industry and regulators to this significant safety issue. This prompted Kmart to recall over 20,000 removable seat covers that had been labelled as “airbag compatible”.

The challenge for Padhye’s team was then to identify a method of manufacture that would ensure removable seat covers ruptured when side air bags were activated. They needed to find a way of weakening the area of the seat cover adjacent to the side air bags, while ensuring the product remained resilient to everyday wear and tear.

Vijayan came up with a solution after researching the use of laser cutting in the automotive industry. Laser pulses could be used to weaken the fabric in precise areas to form a line of breakage, much like a microscopic needle piercing a line through fabric. With this refined technique, the team was able to create a weakened zone on the fabric with a bursting strength calibrated to ensure deployment of the side airbag following collision.

Padhye’s collaboration with Who-Rae has brought to market removable car seat covers that provide a greater assurance of safety in the event of a collision. Following early market success in the United States, Who-Rae was acquired by the California-based company Kraco, further broadening the market reach of the product. The product is now sold in the United States, Canada and Australia. In the United States, the new generation car seat covers have captured 30% of all car seat cover sales.

The societal impact of Padhye’s research is even more significant. Side-impact collisions are among the most injurious to car passengers, and combination side airbags have been found to reduce death and injury from side-impact collisions by 60%. Padhye’s research collaboration has produced a removeable car seat cover that is wholly reliable in ensuring side airbag deployment. The replacement of conventional car seat covers with the new generation car seat cover is reducing fatalities and injury that would otherwise result from a failure of side airbags to deploy. Australia needs to introduce new regulatory standards that would further support the uptake of this technology.

Padhye continues to develop textile innovations that provide greater performance, comfort and safety for consumers. In 2018 he received the Australia New Zealand Sports Technology award for design of a new fabric that can provide cyclists greater protection against skin abrasions.

For further information contact the Centre for Materials Innovation and Future Fashion.

SDGs

Continue exploring

Read related RMIT impact stories

Connecting through nature to reduce loneliness and build belonging

RMIT researchers have worked with LGBTQIA+ refugees and asylum seekers to test how shared experiences in nature can reduce loneliness and strengthen social connection and belonging.

Part of the team behind the EINSTEIN AI program.

Improving fungal infection detection and control for immunocompromised cancer patients

An RMIT research team partnered with clinical, research and data organisations to develop and implement an AI-powered surveillance tool, improving how invasive fungal infections are monitored in cancer patients.

New touch-screen therapy tool for stroke rehabilitation

New touch-screen therapy tool for stroke rehabilitation and acquired brain injury.

System warns of powerline faults to prevent blackouts and bushfires

An early fault detection (EFD) system invented at RMIT University is helping to prevent bushfires and blackouts in North America, Europe and Australia.

See more stories +

Connect with RMIT Research

If you're not sure how you can best work with us, our team can explain what's possible and put you in touch with the right person.

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples