Re: A Close Look: Toyota Vellfire Quote:
Originally Posted by amalji In fact, I got this info on deceleration impacting our internal organs from one of the crash tests done on a small car ( The smart car ) where the anchor concluded the show by saying that regardless of how safe the cabin is, the internal organs will still not be able to take the amount of deceleration. It was a high speed crash test though unlike the NCAP ones. | ![O.T.](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/Off Topic.gif)
I'm guessing you're referring to Fifth Gear's videos. They're nice fun to watch, but I would not suggest taking too much from them. They're fairly unscientific and very qualitatively evaluated. It's a mimicry of laboratory tests, but IMO you can't get much done by placing clothing store mannikins in the seats in place of test dummies, or, in the case of the Smart, no dummies at all! Any crash test should ideally aim to get as much data as possible from the test; Fifth Gear's just don't do that. Those tests did make for some very gruesome images for viewers which was probably their main aim, but the Smart's passenger compartment probably didn't deform as much as they would have expected at that speed (unlike that Focus they crashed), which of course made them say qualitatively that the driver would have likely suffered serious injury because of high forces, which I'm not denying because their theory has merit, BUT it would be best if they had placed instrumented dummies in the seats and could prove using dummy readings that there was a high risk of life-threatening injury to the organ(s). That, IMO, would have been a much more meaningful test.
Regardless, at speeds like those they crashed the Smart at, it's likely that the restraint systems might not be able to perform as designed. Quote:
Originally Posted by amalji One thing that I'm still curious about is how it performs in a small overlap crash test. Maybe, the sales volumes are not high enough globally for the NCAP / Insurance agencies to do such tests on Vellfire. |
Unfortunately, the only organisations that I know of who do consumer rigid-barrier small-overlap testing are the IIHS in North America and China's Insurance Automotive Safety Index (C-IASI), both of which are funded by the insurance industry. The main issue in a small overlap test is that either the longitudinal members (the crumple zone) are not hit, or the cross-member joining the two detaches from its mounts and rotates, effectively allowing the test barrier (or the opposing object) to intrude virtually unrestricted. Unless the car has been designed to handle these types of crashes, performance in these tests will generally be weak. The USA's NHTSA has an experimental oblique overlap test which also similarly misses the longitudinal beams and often causes extensive deformation of the passenger compartment. Germany's ADAC (who also incidentally tests Indian cars for Global NCAP) conducted a series of experimental deformable-barrier small-overlap tests on some European city cars and the results were mixed. Euro NCAP says they've studied data that shows those crashes are rare in Europe, though ADAC (who is a Euro NCAP accredited laboratory) has a different view. They even pointed it out as a limitation of Euro NCAP's frontal test while developing the new mPDB barrier ( see page 2). Do also look at page 5 which should answer your question about the crumple zone's length.
ADAC's experimental deformable-barrier small overlap tests on city cars with short crumple zones:
Last edited by ron178 : 4th January 2022 at 12:52.
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