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Car Body Design
COMECar Body Design
1 – History of Crashworthiness
Dr. habil. Fabian DuddeckDepartment of Engineering
Queen Mary College, London University
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
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Car Body Design
First Motor Cars, 1886
Carl Benz(1844 – 1929)
Benz Car (1886)
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Car Body Design
First Motor Race, 1895
Champion: J. Frank Duryea, Mean Velocity: 12 km/h
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First Killed Pedestrians, 1896
Mrs. Bridgette Driscol of Croyden was the first personkilled by a car when she left the Crystal Palace in London.
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Year 1906/07 1907/08 1908/09 1909/10 1910/11 1911/12
6,774 8,431
11.8
4,262
343
11.5
10,105
12.6
5,5423,651
278 442
1912/13
Car accidents 4,864 5,069 6,063 11,785
Killed occupants 145 141 194 504
Accidents per
100 cars13.2 11.9 11.9 12.3
Injured occupants 2,419 2,630 2,945 6,313
Early Accident Statist ics (Germany)
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Change the Car/Driver or the Victim/Environment?
• In 1913, more than 4,000 people
died in car accidents (USA).
• By the 1930s, more than 30,000
people died every year.
• In an effort to lower accident and
death rates, safety advocates
stressed the Three Es:
– engineering,
– enforcement, and
– education.
• Since most safety advocates
assumed that careless people were
the cause of wrecks, early safetyefforts focused on educating drivers
and pedestrians, rather than
designing and producing safer
automobiles and highways.
1908
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Education
Song by Charles P. Hughes, 1924
The song’s lyrics were laden with
advice to avoid being hit by a car, but
placed the onus of responsibility on
the child, not the driver:
“When you're playing in the street don't
forget that danger's near With the noise of scrambling feet you
can't hear the cars appear
And soon the little friend you loved lies
in pain
You may never see him again.” “Beware Little Children”From the Smithsonian Collection
“10,000 Little Children were killed by
autos in 1924. There are 12 principalCommandments of Safety. Keep theseand you will be safe from accidents. Besure to show your work to daddy andmother and your teacher. Be a little
Apostle of Safety. Have your teacher forman ‘ABC’ Club, which means ‘Always BeCareful,’ and sing the Safety Song athome and in school.”
E l A id t
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Early Accidents
Rigid Structure for Safety?
Is this a safe vehicle?Is this a safe vehicle?
Fi t E i t
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First Experiments
DKW Auto-Union, 1937/38
• The AUTO UNION AG, based in
Chemnitz, Germany, was the firstcar manufacturer to develop anempirical crash program in1937/38.
• They performed front, side, poleimpacts and rollover tests.
• The rollovers were captured in atest film, the other tests were toofast. The cars were droppedsideways from a ramp.
• The intention was to test thestrength of the bodies as part of thedevelopment program for the
introduction of plastic or woodenstructures.
• The studies were motivated by theaim to replace metal for car
structures by wood or plasticswithout loosing crashworthiness.
Fi t Bi h i
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First Biomechanics
John Paul Stapp, 1944
• In 1944, John Stapp started
research in aerospace medicine
for the U.S. air force.
• The first rocket-sled deceleration
research program at Edwards Air
Force Base on the Mojave Desertwas Stapp's first project related to
passive safety.
• His assignment was to determine
human tolerance to decelerationand protection from crash forces.
• John Stapp started to be concerned
not with the structure but with the
human body.• Often, he himself was the test
object.
First Biomechanics
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Car Body Design
First Biomechanics
John Paul Stapp, 1944
• The rocket-sled accelerated 400 m on
tracks to attain aircraft landing speeds,then was subjected to aircraft crash
deceleration. Metal scoops beneath
the sled plowed into a trough of water
for the slow-down.• Thirty-two rocket runs were made with
a dummy passenger before Stapp took
his first ride in Dec. 1947. By
May 1948 he had taken 16 rides inthe backward-facing position, with
stresses up to 35 times the pull of
gravity. This was double the stress
that had previously been set as the
limit of human tolerance.
• These experiments proved that
backward-facing seats would give air
transport passengers optimum crash
protection.
First Conferences 1955
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Car Body Design
First Conferences, 1955
John Paul Stapp
• The first Car Crash Conferences
were organized in 1955 by
John P. Stapp.
• He presented at the Holloman Air
Base sled tests and auto crash
tests; aspects of automotive designand safety features were discussed.
• Many of the safety features
discussed and recommended were
passed along to traffic experts andautomotive engineers, e.g.:
- moving dashboards
- energy absorbing padding;
- fitting doors with safety locks;
- removing rear window shelves;
- fastening seats
- bumper design;
http://www.stapp.org
50th Stapp Car
Crash
Conference
November 6-8,
2006
Public Attention to Car Safety
http://www.stapp.org/http://www.stapp.org/
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Car Body Design
Public Attention to Car Safety
Ralph Nader, 1965: Unsafe at any Speed
• Nader was referring to the Chevrolet Corvair as"Unsafe at Any Speed", NOT all cars unsafe at
any speed, with the implication that speed limits
must be cracked down on.
• Ralph Nader’s controversial book alerted thepublic to unsafe features of automotive design
and played a key role in establishing
government safety standards for cars.
In 1965, Ralph Nader targeted
General Motors and the
American auto industry in his
best-selling book Unsafe at any
Speed – The Designed-In
Dangers of the American Automobile.
Public Attention to Car Safety
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Car Body Design
Chevrolet Corvair
Public Attention to Car Safety
Ralph Nader, 1965: Unsafe at any Speed
Béla Barényi 1907 – 1997
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Car Body Design
Béla Barényi, 1907 – 1997
Patent for the Crash Crumble Zone, 1951
Béla Barényi 1950 – 1960
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Car Body Design
Béla Barényi, 1950 1960
Crash-safe Door Lock
Simulation Model for a Current
Door Lock, BMW, 2004.
Mercedes Benz, 1950s
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Car Body Design
Mercedes Benz, 1950s
First Sled Tests
• Insights:
• The possibility to survive in a crash
with 50 km/h was almost zero;
• 25% of the fatalities happened
because the occupants were thrown
out of the vehicles;
• The design of the interior is not
adequate to prevent severe head
injuries;
• The newly proposed belting
systems are really improving safety;
• The steering wheel and the
instrumental board should be
adopted to head and chest impacts.
Mercedes Benz, 1962
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Mercedes Benz, 1962
Crash Barriers along the Roads
Daimler-Benz, 1962
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,
Rocket Wagon for Crash Tests
• For acceleration (14 m/s²), a hot
water rocket wagon was developed
(pressurized container, fast opening
valve, ejection nozzle).
• The container is filled with water
and heated up (temperature: 260°C, 50 at). After opening of the valve,
the water is vaporizing outside of
the container.
• It was not possible to integrate therocket into the vehicle itself without
modifying the structure remarkably.
Béla Barényi, 1963
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Car Body Design
y ,
Patent for a Safety Steering Wheel
Full Car Crash Tests (Frontal Impact)
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( p )
BMW (1966) and Mercedes-Benz (1960s)
BMW
Mercedes-Benz
Barrier tests Car-to-car and roll-over tests
Establishment of Crash Tests
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Car Body Design
E.g. Mercedes Benz, 1970s
• New acceleration method based
on an electric linear motor thatruns underneath the vehicles
along a 100-meter trench.
• New video systems have been
developed.
• Deformable and non-deformable
barriers were used.
First Seat Belts and Airbags
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Car Body Design
Mercedes Benz, 1980
• First Safety belts already in the19th century;
• Nils Bohlin invented the three-
point belt and introduced it into the
Volvo cars in 1959.• First Airbags really applied in the
1980ies.
Modern Test Tracks
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Car Body Design
UTAC, Paris
Crash Video
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Car Body Design
Renault / UTAC, 2005
Crashed Cars
D i l Ch l
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DaimlerChrysler