Part IV of the series on active and passive safety in vehicle construction. And also in this case we link to one of Jens created video! Part 3, Part 2 and Part 1 can be found here after the link!
Crash tests - exciting scrap!
What happens if it happens?
Oversteer, understeer, do not steer against the tree. What happens if it does happen? What happens when you get off the street. Or worse, having your own vehicle involved in an accident with another vehicle? If the whole active security systems have not helped, then it gets serious! Then the car has to protect the driver and the occupants.
Crash tests simulate an emergency. So that this does not later become a tragedy. A Mercedes-Benz S-Class against a smart? It's unfair. Or?
Big versus small, or David versus Goliath. One car weighs more than double the other vehicle. One is a 5-meter class limousine, the other a small car for the city. If these two collide, then the smart “loses out”, right?
Jens looked at the crash test tunnel at Mercedes-Benz to find out how to crash vehicles “safely” and learn something in the process. And because there have been crash tests at Mercedes since 1959, every generation of vehicles has become safer.
While at the beginning the crash tests were only possible in “real life”, today virtual and “real life” crash tests complement each other. This gives the opportunity to make small changes to the conception of a vehicle on the computer in order to first test the changes virtually - before the sheet metal scrapes and crunches in the crash test tunnel and vehicles drive against the wall or into each other.
But just watch Jens' video for yourself:
driving simulators, Crash test dummies and the start contribution!