Volvo Cars: Volvo Safety

Volvo Cars: Volvo Safety

Anatomy of A Car Crash

Your car's passive safety systems have only half a second to help you in the event of an accident. In a frontal collision, the car's nose will deform to absorb the impact energy. Simultaneously, the driver and passenger airbags will be deployed with a force that varies according to the size of the impact.

The pre-tensioners on the three-point, inertia-reel safety belts of all new Volvo cars tighten the belts, while at the same time, a force limiter allows the belts to give a little when they are subject to a predetermined force. This helps to cushion the wearer in a controlled manner.

The anti-submarining seats help to prevent any injury to your abdomen by preventing you from sliding under your belt.

It’s a Belter

In 1959, Nils Bohlin, a Volvo safety engineer, invented the three-point safety belt we know so well today. The following year, it was fitted as standard on the Amazon and the PV544. So important was this invention considered to be, in 1985 it was named by the West German patent office as one of the eight inventions of most benefit to mankind to appear in the last 100 years.

In the real world, a crash can occur in many different ways; it can occur at different speeds, take place in different traffic environments and the passengers inside the car may encompass a range of different sizes.

The Complex World

Volvo Cars intends to take into account various different traffic situations and different traffic environments that can be encountered globally when designing the safety elements built into its cars. In addition to Volvo’s own work, independent crash-test rating institutes perform standardised crash tests under certain predicted conditions.

The Whole Picture

Well-being and Preventative Safety Systems
This technology helps you to avoid accidents by enabling you to drive more safely. Some of this technology, such as ABS anti-lock braking systems, has been around for many years, but Volvo continues to develop safety systems that may make driving in the future safer than ever. Volvo believes that a comfortable, focused and secure driver is also a safer driver.

Protective Safety Systems
These are all of the systems on Volvo cars that are called into play at the moment a crash is unavoidable. Examples on passive safety systems include safety belts, airbags, and WHIPS whiplash protection system.

Security
This area of research includes the development of security items such as the latest alarm technology and anti-theft glass, but also includes research into the well-being of drivers and passengers. The result of research into well-being has led to the development of a range of new technologies including orthopaedically developed seats and hypo-allergenic interiors.

Cutting-Edge Safety

What is the Volvo Safety Centre Test Laboratory?
It is the most technically advanced crash-test facility in the world and a mammoth project in its own right, as 65,000 cubic metres of rock had to be moved to build it. The total investment was US$86 million at its launch in the year 2000.

How does it work?
The main hall is like a giant hub to which two tunnels are attached. The first tunnel is fixed; the second can be moved by up to 90 degrees so that a variety of different crash-test angles can be produced. Cars are propelled down the tunnels to collide in the central hall using laser instrumentation so accurate that it can control the point of impact to within a few centimetres. The cars can also be crashed into a special crash barrier in order to replicate many different types of collisions. The crash barrier itself weighs 800 tonnes and can withstand the huge impact of a 12-tonne truck hitting it at 80 km/h.

What happens on impact?
At the point of collision, special Stalax high-speed cameras capable of shooting 3000 frames per second capture it on film. The use of up to 30 cameras ensures that every important angle is captured. The data that is captured is then analysed in detail by the research engineers.

How is the tunnel moved?
The 108-metre tunnel is moved on a series of tracks that utilise air-cushion technology in order to lift the tunnel's 600-tonne weight. The same technology is also used to move the 800-tonne crash barrier.

How do the cars move down the tunnel?
Technicians use a system normally used in the mining industry to hoist mine carts – although whereas the propulsion system in a mine is used vertically, the same technology is used horizontally in the Safety Centre. The system can propel the cars at speeds of up to 120 km/h.

Testing

Within the Volvo Cars Safety Centre, there is a unique piece of safety-testing equipment. The crash simulator is derived from the type of machinery normally used to test a building's resistance to earthquakes, but here it is used to test the steering wheel, airbags and safety belts without damaging the car body.

The parts are attached to the bare shell of a car and put onto a sled where a giant ram pushes it backwards with enough force to simulate the impact of a car crash.

The sled can also simulate the forward-tipping motion of the car and the deformation of specific components that take place in a collision in order to replicate more accurately what happens in a whole car crash.

Did You Know?

Volvo's supercomputer is so fast that it is capable of undertaking up to 45 fully simulated crash-tests every 24 hours. In addition, before it takes part in a real crash-test, each Volvo undergoes many virtual crash-tests on the supercomputer.

Volvo Cars: Volvo Safety