Golf crash test 100 km/h

BrianD3

This test is 2 years old but I've only found it online now. VW Golf MkV crashed EuroNCAP style but at 100km/h instead of 64 km/h. About 2.5 times the kinetic energy :eek: Amazingly the passenger compartment of the car does not fold up like paper, it is very resilient. There is some survival space left in the cabin. The drivers feet are definitely mangled and the overall deceleration is probably too much to survive. I don't know though as the commentary and text are in German. Can anyone who knows German sum up what it says?
Video
http://www.wdr.de/tv/kopfball/sendungsbeitraege/2008/0518/frontalaufprall.jsp
Text
http://www.wdr.de/tv/quarks/sendungsbeitraege/2007/0306/006_unfall.jsp

samsemtex

BrianD3 wrote: »

The drivers feet are definitely mangled and the overall deceleration is probably too much to survive.

I dunno if the deceleration would be too much to survive. 100kph isnt that fast and racing drivers have often survived crashes with rapid deceleration at much greater speeds than that.

peasant

From the text:

While the car looks to be in good condition, according to measurements it was decelerated with minus 60 g. The experts say that the person within would have been decelerated wit minus 100 to 200 g.
This is not survivable.

samsemtex

Maybe for some townies like yourself its not survivable. We're made of tough stuff in the country though :cool:

peasant

just watched the video ...there they talk about 50 - 60 g.

The doc says that he hardly ever gets to see victims of high speed crashes because they usually die on the scene and never make it to hospital.


Still ...there were some high speed racing crashes where people more or less walked away ...wonder how they do that

samsemtex

peasant wrote: »

just watched the video ...there they talk about 50 - 60 g.

The doc says that he hardly ever gets to see victims of high speed crashes because they usually die on the scene and never make it to hospital.


Still ...there were some high speed racing crashes where people more or less walked away ...wonder how they do that

Better harnesses maybe, There is no slack in them. I know the HANS device helps with the more recent crashes but that has only been widely used since the early 2000s.

Schumachers crash in Silverstone 99 must have involved almost instant deceleration from over 100mph and he only had a broken leg.

gpjordanf1

peasant wrote: »

just watched the video ...there they talk about 50 - 60 g.

The doc says that he hardly ever gets to see victims of high speed crashes because they usually die on the scene and never make it to hospital.


Still ...there were some high speed racing crashes where people more or less walked away ...wonder how they do that

Racing Helmet, full racing harness, neck restraint device (HANS), racing safety cell & fit as fiddles!

Mr Benevolent

Don't forget the long carbon fibre nose of an F1 car, which absorbs a lot of impact energy. It also depends on the angle of impact - a head on 50G decelleration is a lot more survivable than the same impact side on - the brain isn't designed to cope with 'sideways' G.

Head-ons tend to happen on country roads, so be more careful in the country. The day prebraking (radar-based autobraking based on distance and closure speed) becomes standard on most cars is the day we might actually start to bring the driving death rate down.

paddydriver

I used my extensive German skills to translate the last line and it read like this:

"We don't recommend crashing head on at 100km/h as, unless you are Michael Schumacher with a funny shaped helmet for your funny shaped head, you will likely die from the rapid deceleration"

As Jezza once said on Top Gear... when are the police going to realise that its not the speed that kills, its the coming to a sudden stop that does it.

Dartz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe3JpuVy4cA

Yeah.

It's a wonder more aren't killed actually, considering the forces involved.

Mr Benevolent

Dartz wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe3JpuVy4cA

Yeah.

It's a wonder more aren't killed actually, considering the forces involved.

To be fair, they picked those cars because the crash damage would be more impressive. Smack two '09 Avensii together at the same speed and you might just live.

Mena

Hmm. My first and only serious crash was in an old Audi, in the early 90's. Someone jumped out onto the motorway and I t-boned them doing around 110Kph. I had no safety belt on at all.

My head went through the windscreen and my chest inverted the steering wheel.

I was taken to hospital but released the following day.

so, my point is, it is survivable :P

Mr Benevolent

Mena wrote: »

Hmm. My first and only serious crash was in an old Audi, in the early 90's. Someone jumped out onto the motorway and I t-boned them doing around 110Kph. I had no safety belt on at all.

My head went through the windscreen and my chest inverted the steering wheel.

I was taken to hospital but released the following day.

so, my point is, it is survivable :P

Superman's just revealed his identity

unkel

peasant wrote: »

just watched the video ...there they talk about 50 - 60 g.

From memory most people wouldn't survive 30 g

Slidey

I had a head on smash (slightly off centre) in a mk3 Golf when a tool did a uturn on a Dual Carrigeway.

I was defo doing 60mph and he claimed to be doing about 10.

Only injury was a cut knuckle when my hand came off the steering wheel and sent the radio into the dash. I got no chance to brake whatsoever in case ye are wondering.



I was out of hospital 2 hours later

Saab Ed

Slidey wrote: »

I had a head on smash (slightly off centre) in a mk3 Golf when a tool did a uturn on a Dual Carrigeway.

Did you just say U-turn on a Dual carrigeway :eek:... My God what sort of a toolbox was that. That deserves public flogging IMO. Jeez you were lucky.

mickdw

Mena wrote: »

Hmm. My first and only serious crash was in an old Audi, in the early 90's. Someone jumped out onto the motorway and I t-boned them doing around 110Kph. I had no safety belt on at all.

My head went through the windscreen and my chest inverted the steering wheel.

I was taken to hospital but released the following day.

so, my point is, it is survivable :P

Yes but you both probably moved in the direction you were travelling thereby reducing the deceleration involved. That would have been a much worse accident for the occupants of the other car Id say.

Slidey

I know, I had my full Sykes tool box in the van the morning before.

I would have been a pancake if it had happened that morning.

He thought he could get back to the roundabout after taking a wrong turn.





I think it held up fairly well..

Mr Benevolent

unkel wrote: »

From memory most people wouldn't survive 30 g

50G is the threshold for serious injury and 100G will kill. A lot depends on long the G takes to peak (crumple zones etc).

Two Russian cosmonauts survived a five minute re-entry at 25G with no more than bruising. A normal Russian re-entry is made at about 6G.

unkel

Confab wrote: »

50G is the threshold for serious injury and 100G will kill.

I know I didn't post a link, but do you have one? Seriously strong and fit young males like astronauts and F1 drivers can take a lot more than the average man / woman. There are always exceptions. Just read today about a toddler in China who fell down 21 stories and survived with only a few broken bones and some internal injuries.

We did a few of these type of threads before and people did some research and iirc 30 g was pretty bad, although of course some people might survive

Anyone any relevant links?

AugustusMaximus

David Purley survived 179.8g in an F1 crash so 60g is def possible to survive.

He holds the record for the person to have expierienced the highest gs and live.

Mena

mickdw wrote: »

Yes but you both probably moved in the direction you were travelling thereby reducing the deceleration involved. That would have been a much worse accident for the occupants of the other car Id say.

Her and her three kids. They walked away fine, couple of scratches was all. All I recall from the incident is aiming for a spot so as not to hit the kids, but to be fair, that's probably something my mind made up after the fact.

BrianD3

Slidey wrote: »

I had a head on smash (slightly off centre) in a mk3 Golf when a tool did a uturn on a Dual Carrigeway.

I was defo doing 60mph and he claimed to be doing about 10.

That is a serious crash especially in a older design like a Mk3. But it's not as bad as the one in this test. Hitting another car at a closing speed of 70 mph is much less severe than hitting a EuroNCAP barrier at 60 mph. Even though the deformable barrier absorbs some of the energy the barrier does not move like a car would

Also the angle makes a huge difference. An offset crash with say, 70% overlap is very different to one with 40% overlap. 40% is very challenging for the cars structure. A bigger overlap might result in a more sudden stop for the passengers but with less spinning/sideways movement. So it's quite complicated.

Just to give an idea of how bad cars used to be here are two tests from about 20 years ago. The despcriptions on the videos are incorrect, the speed is not 56 km/h.
Ford Escort offset crash 50% offset, 50 km/h

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si6Cz4BQc4k

Opel Corsa offset crash 50% offset, 45 km/h

voxpop

I always thought the one on topgear with landrover was pretty interesting - how the cabin deformed to do some nasty things in the landrover, where as a fiesta (or something) faired pretty well

Mr Benevolent

Hitting another car at a closing speed of 70 mph is much less severe than hitting a EuroNCAP barrier at 60 mph. Even though the deformable barrier absorbs some of the energy the barrier does not move like a car would

I wondered about that. So there's a lot of margin in the crash design. Very interesting. I haven't seen any vids of two 4/5 star cars being crashed yet.