5 Things You Don’t Know About Car Safety and Crash Tests | Video

It is not often that a manufacturer opens the doors of its plants or its R&D or test centers. For this reason I feel very lucky to have been among the few who have been able to visit the Polygon Test Center in Uhelnice, a center of excellence (awarded in 2020 with the Crash Laboratory of the Year) where Skoda celebrated 50 years of crash tests in Czech Republic. It was 1972, the country was called Czechoslovakia and the first car to face the tests of the time was the Skoda 100 L pushed at 48 km / h by a steam rocket against an obstacle fixed (via a rail that ended five meters before a concrete wall).

It is said that the first test was that of a Skoda 1000 MB launched at 20 km / h against a wall in 1968, but there is no documentary evidence of this. The car did not use external propulsion systems, but the carburetor adjustment had been made to allow it to reach this speed at idle.

Today the manufacturer has a personal record: all 15 new models introduced since 2008 have always achieved five EuroNCAP stars and, in 2021, the new Fabia and Enyaq iV were the safest in their segment.

Over the years, the price of cars has increased significantly and, often, we complain that the first generation, purchased perhaps at a young age, was much less expensive than the latest version of the same model purchased ten, twenty or thirty years later.

What very few, however, focus on is that safety (passive and active) has made enormous steps forward. Today it is increasingly difficult to die in a car, but the car has become safer even for weak road users (pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, scooters).

Today we all want to see the 5 EuroNCAP stars and very high scores, but we do not stop to investigate how these results can be achieved in tests that becomeYear after year, increasingly rigid and severe. Just to give you an order of magnitude, during the design phase of the car (before the official tests) a manufacturer like Skoda (and it is certainly not the only one) performs about 20,000 computer simulations and a couple of hundred physical tests of the parts most involved in the event of a collision, and this only to determine safety in the event of accidents with pedestrians.

All this means that the car is designed, then tested (digitally and actually) and, if you find that something is wrong, you go back to design by changing the materials or designs.

At that point, however, it is necessary to verify that the changes do not affect the aerodynamics, design or manufacturability of the components in the factory, otherwise they would further increase costs. And this cycle continues until the final result is reached which ensures, in internal tests, the passing of the homologation tests first, and of safety (EuroNCAP, Global NCAP etc.) afterwards.

Another aspect ignored by most concerns that of the tests on dummythe “mannequins” that simulate human beings and that allow us to study what would happen to our body in the event of an accident.

Over the years it has gone from very simple models to increasingly sophisticated and sensor-rich models, so much so that today it ranges from figures, excluding VAT, ranging from € 120,000 to almost half a million euros. It should be noted that not only the number of sensors in the dummies and their likelihood has increased, but the types of physique have also increased that these mannequins go to simulate.

Today there are dummies able to simulate most of the types of female physique, for example, in addition to the male one of various sizes and that of children which is tested with the appropriate restraint systems, and therefore ensures the safety of the little ones only if they use a child seat suitable for their size and age (a theme well testified by Filippo during his visit to the Cybex laboratory).

Europe is one of the most attentive countries in terms of safety, the goal is to achieve zero mortality due to road accidents, and to do so have been introduced increasing safety obligations, imposed on all producers who want to enter the market of the Old Continent. This is one of the main reasons why between the classic Chinese “low cost” car distributed in the East and the same car marketed in Europe, there are important differences in price.

It is not just about ADAS, some of which are now mandatory in the EU, but also about how the frame is engineered and the materials used precisely because European tests use higher thresholds.

Finally, speaking of ADAS today in Europe cars must have series production the anti-collision system, Front Assist with automatic emergency brakingand the Lane Assist which warns in case of unintentional exit from the lane and helps to put the vehicle back on track.

Manufacturers can then decide to add complementary features to the minimum requirements that also include all electronic traction / ABS controls and airbags (on the Czech brand’s cars there are at least six as standard, Octavia reaches ten). Skoda offers all the most advanced levels of active safety and semi-autonomous driving on the entire range (standard or optional depending on the model), once reserved only for flagships.

Among these there is Travel Assistant with adaptive Cruise Control which can also be predictive, the evolved version of the lane monitoring (Adaptive Lane Assistant) which also recognizes road works, or preventive systems such as occupant protection.

The latter is standard on Octavia, Karoq, Kodiaq, Superb and Enyaq iV and when it detects an impending collision it tightens the seat belts, closes the windows and turns on the hazard lights.

Modern plants such as the one in Uhelnice, near Mlada Boleslav, must be able to count on numbers capable of enabling a wide variety of tests. Polygon has expanded the test facility from the original 50 meters to 100 meters, allowing vehicles to be launched at a more constant speed so as not to affect the position of the dummies.

Today the stopping room is more than 180 meters long and allows two vehicles with a total weight of up to 3.5 tons to be launched in frontal approach: both can be launched at a maximum of 65 km / h or a single one at 120 km / h. Collisions are currently simulated at 50 km / h.

The test facility then hosts nine mannequins for adults and four mannequins for children used in test vehicles and positioned in the passenger compartment to the millimeter by means of static photogrammetry which allows the seat to always be in the correct position.

To supervise the tests there is a measurement wall to record the forces generated during the impact as well as 20 static cameras and 30 high speed HD cameras (the number of frames per second counts more than the resolution) integrated during crash tests. A flooding system of vehicles used following crash tests involving electric vehicles, as required by law.

Speaking of numbers and technologies, electric cars must be mentioned, subject to crash tests like all crash test cars. In the design phase, a battery-powered car has to deal with battery numbers of an order of magnitude greater than traditional cars: the voltage is 400/800 V depending on the technology used. The electric battery is built into the floor and its modules are enclosed in an impact resistant and waterproof casing.

The equipment is completed by the protection relays and sensors: in the event of an accident, the electrical components are disconnected from the battery in a few milliseconds and, by independent tests (including some extended in addition to the legal requirements), it has been shown that the battery has remained intact even in the face of strong deformations of the bodywork and the interruption system worked in all collisions.

In addition to dummies, safety tests also employ simulated body parts by devices also filled with sensors. Uhelnice’s Polygon test facility has made available some of the main ones, including two spheres that simulate the head (same size, but different weight depending on whether they are adults or children) and limbs.

Specifically, the legs used in the tests have evolved over time, starting from fixed models that allowed the analysis of trauma but did not take into account the natural joints, to more advanced models that are now standard in Europe. In some cases, such as in India, the legislation still allows the use of the previous model (the blue one in the image below).

Both versions go to evaluate damage to muscles, tendons and bones, but also in this case there has been an important evolution. If the “1.0” version tendons were represented by metal elements with the same resistance as the human ones, the “2.0” version uses a potentiometer and is more compact and more precise in quantifying the forces generated during the impact.