Volvo dropped 10 cars of different models from a crane at a height of 30 meters to help rescue workers understand the challenge of passenger extraction
Volvo has firmly established itself as a pioneer in automotive safety and has been playing a significant role in reducing road fatalities by undertaking several research projects. The Swedish automaker does not hesitate to sacrifice several fully built vehicles in the process of studying safety related problems.
Volvo drop test
As a part of its latest research project, Volvo has dropped its cars like the new XC40, V90, XC90 and many more; from a crane at a height of 30 meters multiple times to try and understand the challenges faced by rescue personnel. The crane drop experiment is an attempt to simulate the most extreme scenario of crashes in which the vehicles are subjected to multiple high energy impacts.
The experiment allows the engineers and rescue professionals to understand the nature of forces and extent of damages that cannot be simulated during regular crash tests. For example, a very high speed coming together of a car and a truck or a car taking multiple side hits.
In crashes like these, occupants inside the car are mostly likely to be in a very critical condition, and often, extracting them from the mangled remains is a challenging task. The road accident rescue specialists use hydraulic tools known within the industry as ‘jaws of life‘ which play a crucial role in transporting the accident victims to hospital within the golden hour.
Volvo’s crane drop research experiment is conducted in association with the Swedish rescue services explores to identify efficient methods to help save lives in the event of a severe accident. The study will result in a detailed report with all the findings, and it will be made available to rescue workers elsewhere for free.
How rescue workers benefit from this experiment?
It is common for rescue workers to get trained using old scrapped cars which are several years old. Over these years, the materials used in automotive bodies have gotten much stronger and hence, it is important for the personnel to familiarize themselves with the modern cars to be able to be effective. This is where Volvo’s latest experiment comes into picture.
The automaker dropped a total of 10 vehicles of different models multiple times to offer the rescue workers a real extraction challenge. The engineers calculated how much pressure and force each car need to achieve the desired extent of damage.
We hope the drop test leads to important findings that would help the emergency services handle passenger extraction quicker and easier. Kia had performed a vertical crash test in the past, on the Carnival. But that was for a different reason.
