Airbags deployed

Did a lot more damage than that to our Chrysler 300M by running into a light pole (in a parking lot) without triggering the airbags.

 

congrats! all the best

 

while we're here, have you cleaned the egr circuit?

 

Is resetting the module enough if all bags were deployed ? Is there an air tank that gets refilled? For a future accident ?

 

Airbag manufacturers have used different chemistries for the propellants, such as:

• Sodium azide (but makes pretty toxic fumes, yuck)
• Tetrazole (better, but more expensive)
• Guanidine nitrate
• Ammonium nitrate (a choice that cost Takata large sums)

At one point, when the Takata issues were big in the news, I dug into which propellants were used in the airbags in my Gen 1, but I've forgotten since then. Ok, yeah, I found the inflator makes and models, but not exactly the chemistries.

But they are all chemicals where you can start a reaction with a hot electric squib and then they make a whole lotta gas real fast.

The passenger side (at least on my Gen 1) was a "hybrid" type: there's already a bunch of high-pressure compressed gas inside the inflator, behind a rupture disc, along with the propellant charge. When the squib sets off the propellant, it makes enough additional gas to rupture the disc, and then all the pre-compressed gas plus the new gas inflates the bag.

Another thing you can do with off-the-shelf, automotive airbag hybrid gas generators: launch torpedoes better.

I was trying to find something, anything, that would say what the intended shelf life of a hybrid gas generator is supposed to be, and that was the best reference I found. Says it should be "at least twenty years" and the automotive airbag standards "exceed military standards for reliability."

As one more interesting factoid, it says one typical hybrid gas generator produces "about twenty-five kilojoules".

 

Same thing happened while I was driving my 2010Prius, only I doubt was going even 8mph(bottom frame hit a concrete space divider at night). Steering wheel & knee bags popping(alone in the car and belt on). I would hugely appreciate if I could get some directions as to the different steps you took to get the car rolling(though your synopsis posting up above is nicely descriptive). Any way if you see this, hopefully

 

Not sure if I posted a picture

 

Better picture of the guerilla divider(camouflaged and all)