My dear #cae engineers.
In sequence of moving forward on small car design, today we will see the test of the #smart car of #daimler .
We have seen in my last article, with some images of #smart car crash with Mercedes-Benz AG S-Class, that deformation in the #sclass car was more, compare to #smart.
Follow the link to see the last article..
The passenger cabin of #smart is made of high strength steel like a hard nutshell which does not deform in front crash. As this small baby of #daimler has very small bonnet to absorb the energy, so small amount of KE is absorbed by front wheels and linkages.
I have raised a question in my last article, what happens, if the smart crashes with rigid #barrier or the two #smart #crash with each other?
To answer this, I am attaching a test video of #smart with rigid #barrier at a speed of 112km/hr (double of FMVSS208 test speed). In this video you can observe that, how intact is the occupant cabin, when this baby hits with a 20 Ton concrete barrier (A rigid barrier)!
The car is bouncing back with high speed, and even rear glass and roof plastics scattered due to propagation of crash wave till rear end. The hard nutshells shown with blue color in my previous post, does not deform. Bouncing back of the car and moving the 20-ton concrete, without any deformation in passenger cabin, shows the high stiffness of the passenger cabin.
Now, you can imagine how big a deformation could be in other car, if this baby hits with full of it’s speed. Check in the images of my last article (image 3 & 4). Though speed was less there.
This car was a 3 Star rated at that time by Euro NCAP, For Safer Cars. Now you can understand the challenges of the #designers #cae engineers and whole team of #daimler to pass the regulatory as well as #ncap tests worldwide.
This is the reason, #german cars are world famous for their engineering and safe car designs. Their #innovations and #engineering expertise set the benchmark for the auto industry world-wide.
Euro NCAP, For Safer Cars always set the new goals for the #germancars manufacturers like their “vision 2030″. That’s how own NCAP of any country is important. Hope the responsible #indiangovernment agencies understand this.
In the video, the car is not tested with any occupant. The question arises again, what happens with occupants in such a hard nutshell?
This we shall discuss in next post. Till that, stay tuned and enjoy the start of the winter….
Hope the things are clear now, as most of you asked questions by commenting and messaging me about my previous article. As you are always at front line and key of successful designs in any industry, so keep learning!
Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) SAEINDIA ICAT-International Centre for Automotive Technology National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA National Highway Authority Of IndiaÊ(Nhai) NATRiP Nitin Gadkari Ministry of Road Transport & Highways – India
