French approval procedures for pyrotechnical automotive safety equipments

Pyrotechnical articles for civil uses may be subject to national procedures before placing on the market According to the French decree n°90-153, 16 February 1990 as modified; explosives that are dispensed with EC marking and that are not excluded of the decree application have to conform to approved types. Pyrotechnical automotive safety equipments such gas generators for airbag modules or seat-belt pretensioners, pyrotechnie relay compositions and/or igniters inside those gas generators fall into that case. The approval procedure, test methods and criteria relating to those equipments are described. For a practical use, a flow-chart of the overall procedure applied to obtain the approval is given.