External airbag slows car in a crash

peasant

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/safety/5495705/External-airbag-slows-car-in-a-crash.html

Mercedes-Benz has developed an airbag that deploys under the front of a car milliseconds before a head-on crash, acting as an anchor by rubbing along the road surface and doubling the stopping power of the brakes.

It also raises the car by about eight centimetres - to counteract the car 'diving' under heavy braking - improving contact with the bumper of a vehicle ahead and providing greater effectiveness for the seatbelts as occupants are less likely to 'submarine' or slide under them.

Anan1

Now that is pretty cool.

peasant

another article on this

http://www.cartoday.com/content/news/singlepage.asp?in=9709

Matt Simis

Protected by an aluminium and rubber or carbon-fibre shield, the bag improves wheeled braking power from a maximum of about 1g on a dry surface to around 2g, mitigating the effects of the collision.

Wow, wonder what 2gs of decelleration feels like!

voxpop

Radar-assisted emergency braking :eek:
inflatable metal structures :eek:

Soon the car will be driving itself - reminds me of Demolition man, when he crashes and the car is filled with foam :pac:

Anan1

Matt Simis wrote: »

Wow, wonder what 2gs of decelleration feels like!

A bit like being suspended face-down from the ceiling by a seatbelt with someone else lying on your back!

eden_my_ass

peasant wrote: »

It also raises the car by about eight centimetres

Why not just go the whole hog and flip the car over the offending article....or just A-Team style it and barrel roll, now thats how I'd like to see a car avoiding a head on, and as we all know from the A-Teams track record, no one ever died in those car flips, so garanteed safety!

Mr.David

Wonder what happens if it activates and then you hit a pedestrian and they end up under the car and get bludgeoned to death by a giant condom?:)

lostexpectation

knee airbags?

Mr.David

Anan1 wrote: »

A bit like being suspended face-down from the ceiling by a seatbelt with someone else lying on your back!

The acceleration would still only be 9.81m/s^2 wouldnt it? Just that the force would be twice as great.

then again a body at rest has no acceleration.

2g is serious though!!

The Real B-man

That can only be good thing! Wonder will it take off? and how many years it will take to become the Norm in lower Spec Cars.

robtri

The Real B-man wrote: »

That can only be good thing! Wonder will it take off? and how many years it will take to become the Norm in lower Spec Cars.

uusally its around 5 to 10 years after starting life on the S-Class, before it becomes a standard on normal cars

peasant

The Real B-man wrote: »

That can only be good thing! Wonder will it take off? and how many years it will take to become the Norm in lower Spec Cars.

Well, it does need some sort of distance radar and brake assist for triggering it, so I wouldn't expect to see it in a Micra/Fiesta type car any time soon

waraf

Matt Simis wrote: »

Wow, wonder what 2gs of decelleration feels like!

Sore on the auld neck methinks

antodeco

What happens if you mounted a kerb or hit a motorbike? Would either take off or increase likelyhood of killing the motorcyclist.

peasant

antodeco wrote: »

What happens if you mounted a kerb or hit a motorbike? Would either take off or increase likelyhood of killing the motorcyclist.

The way I understand it is that this new airbag gets integrated into the already existing emergency braking setup on the merc.

They already have a distance radar that constantly checks your distance to an object. The electronics on this can already override your brake input and apply max braking force if you're not stomping down hard enough and the distance is decraesing too fast.

This just takes it one step further. Once the system has calculated that all is lost and impact is imminent, it throws anchor.

So, hitting a kerb won't trigger it and I would say the the person on the motorbike would be quite grateful for the big Merc being x percent slower on impact that it would have been without this system.