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How Airbags Work in Our Car

Model: (Various brands) Various
Part: Airbag

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In this video, you can see how airbags work in our car: they deploy inside a vehicle, a situation we would never want to find ourselves in. Then, we see them as they are before an accident. But how do they work, specifically? They are air-filled balloons, placed at specific points in the vehicle, such as the steering wheel.

They are connected to sensors that detect sudden deceleration and to a control unit that sends a signal to a detonator, which in turn initiates the decomposition reaction of sodium azide into metallic sodium and molecular nitrogen. Nitrogen allows the airbag to inflate in just 40 milliseconds.


Updated on 11 October 2026 by ScegliAuto


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