With the increasing number of vehicles on the road, car safety became a major concern for manufacturers and authorities alike. Over the past few decades, this concern resulted in some of the most amazing car safety features that become an essential part of almost every car. Crumple zone also known as crush zone is one such safety feature.
Car crumple zones minimise the physical harm passengers endure in case of a serious collision. On paper, it is a simple design feature, but it actually saves a lot of lives and plays a key role in making a vehicle safer for everyone. Let’s learn more about crumple zones and old vs modern car crash test.
What is a Crumple Zone in a car?
Crumple zones are areas in a car body that are designed to crumple and deform in case of a collision. The purpose is to absorb the force of impact and prevent it from getting transmitted to the passengers.
Earlier, the car designs used to be rather rigid, refusing to take the heat of a collision and deform. This meant the resulting effects would transfer to the passengers- not a desirable output if you are looking for car safety. This continued until 1953, when Béla Barényi, an engineer working for Mercedes-Benz came up with the idea of putting areas at the front and rear of a car to absorb the kinetic energy and deform in the event of a collision.
The first car in which they used the then new safety feature was a Ponton Mercedes (W120). The next car to bear the fruit of Barényi’s efforts was the world’s first production car with crumple zone feature, a Mercedes Heckflosse or more commonly known as Fintail.
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Crumple Zone Designs
Keeping the passengers safe using crumple zones in a vehicle is not as simple as making the whole car design a crumple. There are various factors that go into consideration when designing crumple zones for different cars.
From vehicle weight and size to the frame stiffness, car manufacturers have to check a lot of things to come up with a crumple zone ideal for a certain car design. For example, SUVs are likely to crash with more force compared to small cars while race cars experience a greater impact than your average daily commute cars.
Therefore, there are different types of crumple zone designs – striking a balance between too little or too much impact resistance. There are simple designs with frame segments created so as to deform in certain places and collapse on themselves. On the other hand, advanced designs use a variety of materials such as metal, which are engineered carefully to maximum kinetic energy. Finally, the most high-performance vehicles come with a honeycomb crumple zone providing stiffness when there is no emergency but crumple and turn collapsible in case of a collision.
How Crumple Zone Works
When a vehicle meets an accident and collides with another object, intense kinetic forces emerge. How big these forces can be depends on the mass and speed of the car and the other object/car involved in a collision. This force can simply be termed as acceleration. A crumple zone in a vehicle achieves two goals; reducing the starting force of the crash, absorbing the force before it reaches the passengers.
Crumple Zone – A Buffer
A car crumple zone act as a buffer zone around the vehicle’s perimeter. Some of the car parts such as the engine and the passenger cell are built to be resistant and rigid. If they hit an object directly, the collision force will be tremendous and the deceleration will be too quick. However, where there is a more flexible material around the rigid parts, it will absorb the collision energy.
Moreover, a car crumple zone also redistributes the impact. The collision force will go somewhere and the safety goal is to stop it from reaching the passengers as much as possible. In the case of a collision, a lot of things are likely to happen such as the car spinning, parts flying off or energy being transferred to an inanimate object with which the car has collided. All these minimise the force of impact. In the same manner, the car damage such as body panels smashing, glass shattering and body frame crumpling require energy. All this energy being spent here is the energy not reaching the passengers!
Crumple zones use this simple concept of physics. These are structures built to be crushed, broken and crumpled in case of an accident.
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FAQs
How do crumple zones work?
The aim of a crumple zone is to create a buffer around the “safety cell,” the car section where drivers and passengers are. The crumple zone designs usually include segments that collapse and bend in the event of a collision to absorb energy and reduce the force impact.
Why do cars require crumple zones?
Crumple zones reduce the overall starting kinetic force released as a result of a crash. They redistributing the kinetic force before it reaches and harms the passengers and drivers inside the cabin.
Do old cars have crumple zones?
A majority of the cars manufactured before the 60s lack crumple zones. The first car with these crash zones was designed in 1959.
This is all about crumple zones and their role as a safety feature in cars. However, crumple zones alone are not enough to ensure the safety of the passengers in a vehicle. These areas are accompanied with other major safety features such as car airbags, blind spot monitor, antilock braking system, seat belts and electronic stability control. Understanding the importance of car frame for crash safety helps explain how the overall structural design works together with crumple zones to absorb impact forces and protect passengers.
To learn more about car safety features and tips, stay tuned to the UAE’s leading auto blog.
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