By SEMA News Editors
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have developed a new commercial truck front concept designed to significantly reduce fatal crashes in car-truck collisions. The concept features design principles that manufacturers can interpret and adapt.
"The internal design of the new truck front is aluminum honeycomb. This is a structure composed of repeating hexagonal tubes made from aluminum foil. This is ideal for a lightweight, energy-absorbing structure since around 97% of its volume is air. Aluminum 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,'" said Professor Robert Thomson, division of vehicle safety at Chalmers University of Technology.
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%-60%, which 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%-16% of all car occupant fatalities in both the European Union and the United States. In more than 90% of traffic accidents involving HGVs, it is the other party who dies, usually in a passenger car, according to research. 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).
For the complete details, visit the Chalmers release here or chalmers.se/en/.