air bag disassembly

This reminded me of my neighbour.

His wife was complaining about him for spending weeks messing around with the car indicator because he was worried he was going to set the air bag off in trying to take the steering wheel apart.

As I'm aware of things, the gas generators inside the air bags is not always the same. They've swapped the technologies around a bit and different people use different methods. Some of them are simply compressed gas.

The older ones are azide based. With the azide being toxic and so fond of exploding, taking them apart is obviously potentially risky business. There is some information here, on the CDC's site. One particularly important point is it forming hydrazoic acid on contact with other materials.

To be honest, I've never heard of someone actually managing to get the containers apart at home.

I know that they're removed from cars before crushing in a lot of places to reduce the toxic content of the scrap.

First up, determine it is actually an azide generator.

I expect to open the azide canister it's self, you would then want to ensure the ignitor was entirely safe.

Drilling it, using harsh sawing or any form of grinder is going to be capable of reaching the 300C point at which it explodes. Similarly, you probably want to avoid it coming into contact with unknown metals if possible.

The canisters have holes in them to let the nitrogen out. Rather than trying to drill into canister any more, or tear it open, and risk it going off, you may want to consider dissolving the the azide and recovering it that way.

There are some pictures of the burns these can give even when operating normally here. Do take care shipmate!

{edit}Here you go, someone's already asked about it and another member has managed it. I'd highly recommend PM'ing Nick F to ask him for some (hopefully hands still on) advice - a photograph of the one you have will likely help.

[Edited on 5-2-2011 by peach]

search on youtube for Airbag Couch for some Hilarius viewing

Airbag taken apart

Airbag taken apart

Hey guys -

I design airbags for a living. The company I work for hasn't used azide inflators for 7 or 8 years. We are a major supplier of inflators to many other airbag companies, with one of the only propellant development facilities in the world. We split from Morton Thiokol in the 90s and still share a facility in Promontory, UT.

There are two types of inflators used these days: hybrid and pyro.

Pyro inflators generate all of their gas from a solid fuel. They burn hot and are mostly used for driver, passenger, knee, and seat side airbags.

Hybrid inflators contain a small amount of propellant inside a vessel of stored inert gas, usually a mixture of helium and argon, which has been pressurized to generally between 7000 and 9000 PSI. The small amount of propellant creates a shock wave in the gas which breaks a burst disk and lets the gas out. This type of inflator is usually used in curtain airbags, but can also be found in some driver and passenger bags as well. We also have versions with oxygen-negative propellants and oxygenated stored gas, usually for high-volume curtains like 4-row vans and trucks with tall windows.

In both cases, the generant is usually a highly compressed pellet of a mixture of guanidine nitrate, 5-ATZ, and basic copper nitrate, along with some pentaerythritol for binding and carbon black for anti-static, and some other miscellaneous (and proprietary) bonding agents/burn rate modifiers.

I would not recommend cutting into any airbag inflator without knowing what is inside. There is a news article posted in the cafetria about someone in the industry who had been taking home unused inflators for amusement, until one of them went flying and crushed his brother-in-law's skull, killing him. I believe he is in prison for involuntary manslaughter.



The long ones on top are live hybrids, the bottom left is a spent pyro for a seat side airbag and the bottom left is for a driver airbag. For reference, the big one at the top is 340mm in length.

[Edited on 24-4-2015 by Praxichys]

Hi I recently disassembled a 1997 ford drivers airbag don't have pics of the pellet canister but it was made from tinplate glued together you get 50 grams of pellets that I get 1 gram LA per gram of pellets
if you think about it a airbag has to take a lot of punishment with road vibrations and constantly being turned so as long as you're not stupid you will be ok



[Edited on 26-4-2015 by nux vomica]

Quote: Originally posted by Praxichys

Hey guys - I design airbags for a living. The company I work for hasn't used azide inflators for 7 or 8 years. We are a major supplier of inflators to many other airbag companies, with one of the only propellant development facilities in the world. We split from Morton Thiokol in the 90s and still share a facility in Promontory, UT. There are two types of inflators used these days: hybrid and pyro. Pyro inflators generate all of their gas from a solid fuel. They burn hot and are mostly used for driver, passenger, knee, and seat side airbags. Hybrid inflators contain a small amount of propellant inside a vessel of stored inert gas, usually a mixture of helium and argon, which has been pressurized to generally between 7000 and 9000 PSI. The small amount of propellant creates a shock wave in the gas which breaks a burst disk and lets the gas out. This type of inflator is usually used in curtain airbags, but can also be found in some driver and passenger bags as well. We also have versions with oxygen-negative propellants and oxygenated stored gas, usually for high-volume curtains like 4-row vans and trucks with tall windows. In both cases, the generant is usually a highly compressed pellet of a mixture of guanidine nitrate, 5-ATZ, and basic copper nitrate, along with some pentaerythritol for binding and carbon black for anti-static, and some other miscellaneous (and proprietary) bonding agents/burn rate modifiers. I would not recommend cutting into any airbag inflator without knowing what is inside. There is a news article posted in the cafetria about someone in the industry who had been taking home unused inflators for amusement, until one of them went flying and crushed his brother-in-law's skull, killing him. I believe he is in prison for involuntary manslaughter. The long ones on top are live hybrids, the bottom left is a spent pyro for a seat side airbag and the bottom left is for a driver airbag. For reference, the big one at the top is 340mm in length. [Edited on 24-4-2015 by Praxichys] I know I posted this elsewhere on SM but I didn't know this thread was here else I would have posted this question here first. Could these green discs the guanidine nitrate copper nitrate combo? Or could they be something else? They were in two seperate containers, one was the main compartment with about 35g and the other was in a smaller compartment around an initiator,with 10g next to yet another smaller compartment containing boron potassium nitrate and another initiator. This was from a 2003 ford. I was just curious since I know I lucked out in getting NaN3 and wondered what else this could be.

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Let me just check. That blue stuff is a pyrotechnic mixture designed to produce a lot of hot gas in a hurry. And you thought that a glass container was a good choice? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrapnel_shell