Adam Tarabiya

24/2/13

Crumple Zones

Crumple zones are part of the normal chassis of a vehicle. They are the structural areas in the front and rear of a vehicle that are engineered and tested to absorb as much force as possible in as long as possible time to ensure occupants are left with little or no harm to them and also help others involved in the collision. Physics is behind the explanation as to why crumple zones are necessary. Firstly because of Sir Isaac Newtons laws of motion, in which in his first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion with the speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. For example if a vehicle is travelling at 25 km/h then the occupants are also travelling a 25 km/h and if a sudden stop occurs then the occupants will stay travelling at 25 km/h until they are stopped or lose momentum by friction or gravity. And if the bodies are stopped, the internal organs are not stopped therefore causing severe injuries and internal bleeding which all might lead to death. Also crumple zones work on the second law of Sir Isaac Newton which states that force equals mass multiplied by acceleration. Crumple zones work on the fact that they have to be strong enough to the point they can't fail but malleable enough to be able to change shape and absorb as much force as possible in as long time i.e. the force that is applied on the vehicle and occupants decreases if the time required by the vehicle to stop increases. Crumple Zones make Sir Isaac Newtons laws a work by example where they are placed on the front and rears of the vehicle and absorb as much force as possible by deforming, where parts of the car are engineered to deform and other parts like the cabin are made from high strength steel and more beams for example rally cars use light weight tough material which deforms plastically all around the car except the cabin where they use high strength steel or carbon fibre which is a hard and throng material that withstands a load or force without failure.

Crumple zones are designed or were designed on normal sized street vehicles but now a day when we have the Smart cars, crumple zones are not only at the front and rear of the vehicle but the vehicle itself is the crumple zone. Engineers built the car around a tridion safety cell, which is a steel housing which consists of longitudinal and transverse beams that distribute the force over the entire car.

Crumple zones act basically like a pillow where they reduce the impulse by increasing the impact time. And impulse is the most common cause of death in car accidents.

Adam Tarabiya

24/2/13

Bibliography

Raiciu, Tudor. "How Crumple Zones Work." - Autoevolution. Autoevolution, 26 May 2009. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. "Re: Physics behind Crumple Zones." Web log comment. Physics Forums RSS. N.p., 21 Aug. 2012. Web. 24 Feb. 2013