They Found The Problem Resulting In A Problem

Feds finally know why Takata's airbags keep exploding

Findings come amid a historic expansion of recall and two more related deaths.

Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said a review of ongoing investigations into the cause determined that a combination of time, temperature fluctuations and moisture make chemicals in the airbags degrade.

"The science now clearly shows these inflators can become unsafe over time," he said.

In the United States, residents who have older cars and live in hot, humid areas are at the greatest risk. Federal authorities have given them priority in a coordinated repair effort, but those efforts won't be completed until 2019.

The findings come from a report written by H.R. Blomquist, a former industry chemist and propellant expert commissioned by NHTSA to evaluate the work of three ongoing investigations into the long-running Takata airbag problems.

Blomquist writes that faulty inflator design allows humid air to slowly enter the inflator, where moisture-sensitive propellant slowly degrades over time due to fluctuations in temperature. When airbags deploy in a crash, "the damaged propellant burns more rapidly than intended, and over-pressurizes the inflator's steel housing causing fragmentation," he wrote.

(AutoBlog.com)