New truck front to reduce crash deaths by 60%Friday 5 Apr 2024 Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, have developed a new truck front concept to significantly reduce fatal crashes in car- truck collisions. The new truck front comes after the EU regulations for the maximum length of a truck were lifted. Crash tests on the new truck front were carried out by the Swedish Transport Administration, Trafikverket, and show that better truck designs can reduce passenger car compartment deformations by 30% to 60%. This reduces the risk of injury and possible death for the car occupants.Fatal crashes between heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and passenger cars account for between 14% to 16% of all car occupant fatalities in both the EU and US. In over 90% of traffic accidents involving HGVs it is the other party who dies, usually in a passenger car. The most common accident types in these collisions are head-on crashes on rural roads and rear-end crashes on highways (the HGV drives into the rear of the car in front). It is therefore important to investigate car-to-HGV crashes further to improve the survival rates of passengers in the cars of such collisions. A truck front designed to not kill In order for a passenger car occupant to survive a head-on collision with a truck, the cabin in the passenger car needs to be kept intact. This is not something that is possible to guarantee today, even in the most modern cars, so the new truck front research aims to find the best ways to protect car passengers, as well as truck drivers, in the future. The new front was designed with the goal to demonstrate potential design principles to be interpreted and adapted by manufacturers. "The internal design of the new truck front is aluminium honeycomb. This is a structure composed of repeating hexagonal tubes made from aluminium foil. This is ideal for a lightweight, energy absorbing structure, since around 97% of its volume is air. Aluminium honeycomb is used in many crash test barriers to provide a distributed force and absorb energy. By changing the foil thickness, we can change the force and deformation characteristics. It also has the manufacturing flexibility needed to create one-of prototypes and demonstrate proof-of-concept”, says Professor Thomson. More >> Source: Chalmers University of Technology  |
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