Effect of Air Corona Discharge and ZnO Nanoparticle Coating on Thermo-Mechanical Properties of Polyamide 66 Airbag Fabrics

Airbags––coated and uncoated––are known as passive safety devices and are designed to guarantee efficient crash protection. Therefore, improving every feature of airbag functionality (material or design) is necessary for ensuring the security assurance. Extreme conditions during airbag deployment (high internal temperature and pressure) demand airbags to possess special designation; meanwhile, other technological obstacles (e.g., gas permeability, thickness, and stiffness) pose further design challenges. Despite tremendous efforts being made to improve airbag functionalities, technological innovations and progresses since its first release have been rarely reported. Accordingly, the present study aims to investigate the effect of air corona discharge and ZnO nanoparticle coating on the thermal and mechanical properties of Nylon 66 airbag fabrics. According to the obtained results from full-scale testing of airbag samples, prolonged corona treatment time could harm the mechanical properties of N66 fibers/fabrics so that airbag fabrics fail passing the deployment test. In addition, with regard to FESEM observations, the diameter of the fibers increases noticeably that results in a small rise in fabric thickness and stiffness, which also discloses evidences of microscale damage on the outer surface of fibers. DSC test results further revealed significant improvement in specific heat capacity and melting peak area of airbag fabrics as a result of coating with ZnO nanoparticles. Meanwhile, the optimum time of corona treatment creates functional moieties on the surface of fibers/fabrics that substantially increases the affinity of ZnO nanoparticles to the surface of fabric and results in remarkable improvement in the flammability, laser cutting quality, and antibacterial activity of airbag fabrics.