Thread: SRS Airbags- they have a bit of force

Originally Posted by sashadidi

They certainly are powerful.
He is another example of a airbag explosion from my favourite country for crazy stunts...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca3lBozX4II

Probably a Cosmonaut training film on the G forces on lift off.
Nothing another swig of Vodka won't cure.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

is the amount of force in proportion to the speed required?

Sort of , from what I understand it's set to activate over a certain speed and to "cushion" an avg sized adult during impact. That's why its against the law to have kids in the front seat of an airbag equiped car. The bag is exploding with enough force to hold an adults, so if a kid is there who is 1/3-2/3 the adult weight they are actually injured more than if there was no airbag!
From memory the Japanese recall wasn't the airbag itself, but parts/chunks of the steering wheel became projectiles instead of folding open like a banana skin and staying attached.

Pedro,
I don't believe that airbags differentiate on speed. My nephew's mate just remembers driving along at 60 kph and then the acrid smell of gun powder. No recollection of the airbags deploying at all. T-boned a car who pulled out from a stop sign. Luckily into the engine area, not the passenger cell.

I'm wrecking a D1 that rolled and the air bags didn't deploy, if I hook up the battery and smash the front with a sledge hammer do you reckon I could get them to go off😀

Originally Posted by Gary S11

I'm wrecking a D1 that rolled and the air bags didn't deploy, if I hook up the battery and smash the front with a sledge hammer do you reckon I could get them to go off😀

If you can get the sensor to calculate that the car is being hit by a sledge hammer the size of a brick wall at 40 kph then go for it.... ☺

Originally Posted by Gary S11

I'm wrecking a D1 that rolled and the air bags didn't deploy, if I hook up the battery and smash the front with a sledge hammer do you reckon I could get them to go off😀

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPIYXpxjL1w[/ame]

Originally Posted by frantic

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift View Post
is the amount of force in proportion to the speed required?
Sort of , from what I understand it's set to activate over a certain speed and to "cushion" an avg sized adult during impact. That's why its against the law to have kids in the front seat of an airbag equiped car. The bag is exploding with enough force to hold an adults, so if a kid is there who is 1/3-2/3 the adult weight they are actually injured more than if there was no airbag!
From memory the Japanese recall wasn't the airbag itself, but parts/chunks of the steering wheel became projectiles instead of folding open like a banana skin and staying attached.

The maths says that the change in momentum (impulse) of the air bag is equal to Force times time. So for a specific value of momentum, if the time taken is very very small, the force will be very very big. But air bags sort of have to deploy quickly, because hitting one is still a better option than hitting the dashboard.

Seat belts & crumple zones work in the same way, but attempt to make the crash take longer time, meaning lower force on the people in the car.


Had some mongrel try to steal my (non-airbag) VC Commodore from Oxley train station many years ago. Had a club lock on it, so all they managed to do was to bend the steering wheel trying to get the club off.

Went to the wreckers - they had one VC with a reasonable steering wheel. I took it, despite the blood stains on the top

Air bags cause many injuries,particularly to eyes.

But you are still better off in a vehicle with an airbag than without.

My wifes sister has permanent damage to one of her eyes.She was in the passenger seat with the seatbelt on,sunglasses not on,involved in a head on.Both vehicles were GU patrol wagons,speed was less than 50k/h.One was towing a very large van.Smoke from burning off by the local council caused the accident,and they eventually got the full blame.

Both vehicles and the van were written off,and coincidently both patrols were built in the same month.

Emergency services personnel that attended the accident,are adamant that if both vehicles did not have airbags,the four people in the vehicles would have had much worse injuries.