As I understood from the article ammonium nitrate is way more unstable compared to the other solutions. Apart from the Oklahoma terror attack and the case I mentioned there is also this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks#Breivik_Ge...):
> The place of business was given as Åmot in Hedmark. On 4 May 2011 Breivik purchased six tonnes (13,000 lb) of fertilizer through Geofarm at Felleskjøpet, three tonnes (6,600 lb) of ammonium nitrate and three tonnes of calcium ammonium nitrate. According to neighbours, all the fertilizer was stored in his barn.[47] After conducting a reconstruction of the bomb with equivalent amount of fertilizer on the farm in Åmot, police and bomb experts concluded that the bomb had been 950 kilograms,[48] about the same size as the one used in the 2002 Bali bombings.
All I'm saying is that they could have chosen another explosive-like material, not one which is known to be unstable and which has been used by terrorists to make bombs exactly for this reason.
(Note, all this is based reading, explosives are something I've thoroughly avoided, I like my fingers.)
Nope, ammonium nitrate is a secondary explosive, and as far as I know a rather insensitive one, although how insensitive would depend on what fuel you mix it with. I don't recall if it was mentioned if Takata is mixing it with one. By itself, it's quite insensitive, but in large quantities in worse case conditions has resulted in some of the worst explosives disasters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters Note the Texas City one was in theory pure ammonium nitrate (although I wonder if it was pure enough...), many of the others had other stuff contributing, or starting the disaster.
Don't know about sodium azide, but lead azide has been used as a detonator, and therefore a primary explosive as far as I know, in non-corrosive firearms primers for some time (although I think lead styphnate is more popular).
Ammonium nitrate is a preferred explosive component for many classes of users, military, civilian, and terrorist, simply because it's very very cheap, it's also used as fertilizer. Which of course then makes it relatively accessible to the latter class of users, but not in the ideal form, the more surface area, the higher the boom.
Which circles back to the Takata problem, they haven't been able to keep it from turning into a powder, which has the max surface area and turns it into an explosive that turns the air bag into a true, metal fragment and splinter producing bomb.
The difference is the speed of gas production. A bomb has an uncontrolled rate, and so is lethal by intent and design. The inflator in an airbag should produce gas rapidly, but in a controlled manner - more like a rocket engine. The design of the Takata airbags meant that the tablets of fuel would break down into a powder over time, vastly increasing the surface area that was available to burn and thus gas production became uncontrolled.
As mentioned in the article, which I hope you have read:
> But ammonium nitrate had a critical flaw that he says led other air bag makers to give up on it: Ammonium nitrate has five phases of varying density that make it hard to keep stable over time. A propellant made with ammonium nitrate would swell and shrink with temperature changes, and eventually the tablet would break down into powder.
It seems like ammonium nitrate is more unstable compared to the other solutions (this is why it makes for good bomb material, see the Oklahoma terror attack or the Breivik terror attack in Norway), so it was a very bad decision to use it. But if you want to hit your straw-men then go ahead.
Bloomberg, I think, used the word 'stable' incorrectly in the excerpt. It's not unstable — i.e., it doesn't just go off without being ignited — it's unpredictable. I.e., what should be a relatively slow explosion instead is a very fast one, increasing pressure & thus brisance, leading to shrapnel.
how else do you suggest they produce enough gas within milliseconds to inflate two or more airbags ?