Volvo Cars drops new cars from 30 meters

GOTHENBURG, Sweden,  To allow rescue offerings to put together for any possible crash state of affairs and to simulate the forces that erupt in the most severe crashes, past what can be simulated with ordinary crash testing, Volvo Cars currently took equally severe measures. For the first time, it dropped a number of new Volvos a couple of instances from a crane, from a top of 30 metres.

It is the most intense crash take a look at ever carried out by way of Volvo Cars, and a vital one. Extrication specialists often use motors crashed at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre to hone their life-saving skills.

To enable rescue services to put together for any feasible crash state of affairs and to simulate the forces that erupt in the most extreme crashes, past what can be simulated with normal crash testing, Volvo Cars lately took equally intense measures. For the first time, it dropped numerous new Volvos multiple instances from a crane, from a top of 30 metres.

This method helped create enough injury to correctly simulate the damage determined in the most intense crash scenarios: assume of single-car accidents at very high speed, accidents whereby a automobile hits a truck at high speed, or accidents whereby a auto takes a extreme hit from the side.

In such situations, human beings inside the car are in all likelihood to be in a essential condition. Therefore the priority is to get human beings out of the car and to a clinic as quickly as possible, the usage of hydraulic rescue equipment recognised in the enterprise as 'jaws of life'. Extrication experts regularly speak about the golden hour: they want to release and get a affected person to the clinic within one hour after the accident has happened.

"We have been working carefully collectively with the Swedish rescue services for many years," says Håkan Gustafson, a senior investigator with the Volvo Cars Traffic Accident Research Team. "That is due to the fact we have the identical goal: to have safer roads for all. We hope no one ever wishes to journey the most severe accidents, however now not all accidents can be avoided. So it is essential there are strategies to assist retailer lives when the most severe accidents do happen."

All findings from the crashes and the ensuing extrication work will be amassed in an significant lookup report. This record will be made handy free of use to rescue people elsewhere, allowing them to benefit from the findings and further increase their life-saving capabilities.

Usually, rescue employees get their coaching motors from scrapyards. But these cars are regularly up to two a long time old. And in phrases of steel strength, security cage construction and normal durability, there is a big distinction between present day automobiles and those built fifteen to twenty years ago. And new Volvos are made of some of the hardest metal found in modern-day cars.

This makes it critical for rescue people to continuously replace their familiarity with more recent car fashions and review their processes, in order to boost new extrication techniques. In different words, these education periods can imply the difference between life and death. So at the request of the rescue services, Volvo Cars determined to step matters up a notch.

"Normally we only crash motors in the laboratory, but this was the first time we dropped them from a crane," says Håkan Gustafson. "We knew we would see extreme deformations after the test, and we did this to provide the rescue group a real project to work with."

A complete of ten Volvos, of one of a kind models, were dropped from the crane countless times. Before the drop, Volvo Cars safety engineers made genuine calculations about how an awful lot stress and force every vehicle needed to be exposed to, in order to reach the preferred level of damage.