Testing Of Cars Research Articles

Scaling issues related to modeling of railroad car damage I—Derailment, plastic deformation, rupture, and impact

The awareness and reaction to the vulnerability of transportation systems have stepped up significantly since the increase in terrorist activity over the last several years. Larger conveyance vehicles are especially susceptible to attack and have the potential for doing the most damage to people and surroundings in an accident of any type. Trains are the largest and most dangerous in this respect. This paper is the first of two having to do with issues connected with scaled-model testing of railroad cars in serious accidents. The present paper analyzes mechanical issues due to (1) the derailment itself, (2) plastic deformation of the railway cars, (3) rupture of the cars, and (4) initial impact. The premise of this paper is the fact that full-scale test of railroad cars are for the most part prohibitively expensive and the corresponding data are limited. Small-scale models of trains are preferable, but the dimensions cannot be resized without having many other physical parameters scaled as well. Sometimes the problems can be reduced easily; often they cannot. In this paper, insight to the four damage mechanisms listed above, and ways to scale them, are analyzed using the mathematical technique of dimensional analysis. Also identified are physical phenomena that do not lend themselves to easy rescaling.

Creative destruction [car crash testing

Crashing cars-lots of them-is how Volvo safety engineer Daniel Hedqvist earns his living. Running cars into steel barriers or other cars or the sides of mountains is his job. These days the Swede rigging up plenty of Fords for crash tests. Ford owns the prestigious Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin car companies, and has made Sweden its center of excellence for vehicle safety testing. There's a good reason why the second-largest US car maker has ceded this area of expertise to a non-US supplier: few auto companies have won as many awards for car safety as Volvo. This article discusses safety testing of cars at Volvo using virtual crashes and real crashes. The unique features of the test facilities are briefly outlined including the two intersecting test tracks: a 154-meter fixed track and an 80-meter movable one that can be turned as much as 90 degrees. Front and side collisions can thus be tested at virtually all angles. If the back door at the end of the movable track is opened, cars can be sent flying directly into the rocky hillside outside. For so-called barrier tests, a single car on the fixed track hurtles into an 850-ton block at the far end.

Electromagnetic compatibility in the automotive environment

Modern automotive vehicles depend increasingly on sophisticated electronic control systems to enhance driver comfort and vehicle safety. Radiated immunity testing of cars to field strength levels of the order of 50 V m/sup -1/ has been an important part of the vehicle development process for the last decade because of the harsh environment encountered and the safety-related nature of the control systems. The article reviews the way in which electromagnetic compatibility has been approached by the automotive industry for the last 40 years starting with legislation to control ignition interference to the development of a draft product-specific directive covering all aspects of automotive EMC which will ensure that the automotive industry does not fall within the scope of 89/336/EEC. >

Lakatos, laudan and the hermeneutic circle

Self-driving cars and self-driving technology are tested on public roads in several countries on a large scale. With this development not only technical, but also legal questions arise. This article will give a brief overview of the legal developments in multiple jurisdictions – California (USA), United Kingdom, and the Netherlands – and will highlight several legal questions regarding the testing and deployment of self-driving cars.Policymakers are confronted with the question how the testing of self-driving cars can be regulated. The discussed jurisdictions all choose a different approach. Different legal instruments – binding regulation, non-binding regulation, granting exemptions – are used to regulate the testing of self-driving cars. Are these instruments suitable for the objectives the jurisdictions want to achieve?As technology matures, self-driving cars will at some point become available to the general public. Regarding this post-testing phase, two pressing problems arise: how to deal with the absence of a human driver and how does this affect liability and insurance? The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic 1968 and the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic 1949, as well as national traffic laws, are based on the notion that only a human can drive a car. To what extent a different interpretation of the term ‘driver’ in traffic laws and international Conventions can accommodate the deployment of self-driving cars without a human driver present will be discussed in this article.When the self-driving car becomes reality, current liability regimes can fall short. Liability for car accidents might shift from the driver or owner to the manufacturer of the car. This could have a negative effect on the development of self-driving cars. In this context, it will also be discussed to what extent insurance can affect this development.

The Effect of Extraneous Factors on the Development of Test Methods

Comparative testing of cars for a quarterly consumer magazine poses a particular set of problems. The main ones are time and the designing of apparatus to produce objective comparisons between cars. A subsidiary, but important, problem is the need to produce information which is technically valid and yet readily interpretable by a non-technical public. A test unit is described, and a typical test programme is outlined. Examples are given of the way in which particular problems have been overcome: in particular, the evolution of equipment for measuring acceleration, which has reduced the time necessary for testing by 75 per cent, is described. The development of comparative tests for handling is discussed, and the difficulty of defining a simple measurement of the noise inside a car is used as an example of the difficulty of producing objective measurements which correlate with subjective impressions. It is concluded that, whilst rationalization of test methods is often both desirable and practicable, it is sometimes necessary for individual organizations to retain their own particular methods.