The so-called "penny for a penny", you just need to give me enough money, I will give you a pile of materials, will always achieve the design goals you want, no matter how difficult. Therefore, the more expensive the car, the higher the grade of the model, in terms of passive safety performance will inevitably be much better than the low-end model. On that, I think the vast majority of people will agree.
Hey, in fact, even I agree. Because that's the truth! However, the topic of security is always relative, never absolute. For example, if a car of 100,000 yuan collides with a car of 300,000 yuan, 100,000 yuan will definitely suffer losses. Because it is limited by cost, the materials, processes, configurations and other aspects are "different from generation to generation".
However, with the continuous upgrading of "opponents", the most expensive cars will eventually lose. For example, no matter how expensive the car in the world, when encountering a large truck, it is also resigned to fate, whether you believe it or not! Don't you believe it? You will retort to me that "top luxury cars like Rolls-Royce and Bentley are powerless in front of big trucks"?
Rolls-Royce rear-end truck?
Equally vulnerable!
Some people have really done experiments with their own lives on this matter: Rolls-Royce Phantom cars of this level, after the front-end rear-end truck, the steel beam at the rear of the large truck still easily cuts the A-pillar of rolls-Royce, directly cuts the A-pillar and then "pushes it all the way", and finally the entire front row of Rolls-Royce disappears without a trace!
The reason why Rolls-Royce is vulnerable in front of the big truck is still that the "asymmetry" between the two sides is too exaggerated. The weight of a large truck of tens of tons... this...... Rolls-Royce also has no clue about it... In the same way, dozens of tons of heavy trucks, encountering the main battle tanks facing the bombardment, also have no ability to fight back, instantly into iron slag ... That's the huge generation difference in level! That's just one of them.
Second, the rolls-royce itself has excellent front-end energy absorption and the overall rigidity of the crew compartment! But why are these cleverly designed and well-designed components completely ineffective when rear-ending a large truck? The key is that the height of the rear of the large truck from the ground is too high, the car rear-ends it, the entire front of the car is completely "embedded" in the bottom of the container, and finally the A pillar of the car is hard to hit the lower edge of the container of the large truck...
The A-pillar of the sedan was cut off instantly
It is always the most tragic security pain point!
The frame of the large truck, the minimum thickness of the steel plate is 8 mm to start, the thickness of the channel steel of the tail side beam of the container is 5 mm to start, and it is at a right angle, very sharp, bumping on the A pillar of the car, just like a knife cutting to the A pillar of the car, instantly destroying the other A pillar completely...
At present, the mainstream cars and the A-pillar of urban SUVs are all "sheet metal welding" structures. The thickness itself will not be too thick, the continuity and integrity of the structure will be greatly reduced, and in front of the steel beam at the rear of the large truck, it will be even weaker than the wind... Let's take a look at the A-pillar structure of a conventional car:
There are inner plates, reinforcement plates, and outer plates, and the different layers of plates are connected by spot welding (or laser welding). The reinforced version, which usually plays the main support role, is also 2 mm thick (the thickness of high-end luxury cars does not exceed 2.5 mm); the thickness of the inner plate is commonly 1.5 mm; the thickness of the outer plate is commonly 1 mm.
If there is a professional roll cage
Can it withstand a big truck?
At this time, I thought of an object that is very common in the field of professional racing - the roll cage. According to the FIA (International Automobile Federation) specification, the professional roll cage material must be "unalloyed carbon seamless steel pipe". Simply put, it is required to use "alloy steel" and is not allowed to use "ordinary steel".
Usually the professional roll cage adopts the classic "American Standard 4130 steel" (Japanese grade SCM-430, mainland grade 30cCrMo). The yield strength of this steel is about 800MPa, the tensile strength is about 950MPa, and the toughness is very good. From the perspective of mechanical properties, it can be regarded as 1Gpa grade ultra-high strength steel.
Then the FIA also stipulates the thickness and size of the steel pipe: the diameter/thickness of the main anti-roll frame steel pipe is 45 x 2.5 mm or 50 x 2.0 mm respectively; the diameter/thickness of the anti-roll frame steel pipe in other secondary parts is not less than 38 x 2.5mm or 40 x 2.0 mm; and the diameter/thickness of the structural steel pipe in other non-important parts is 30 x 1.5 mm respectively. In the off-road circle, the wall thickness of the anti-roll frame steel pipe for off-road is directly 3mm to start...
How strong is the roll cage?
Real cases are more useful than any calculation!
Many people don't believe how strong the roll cage can be, so let's look at the classic case: the Portuguese branch of the 2009 WRC (World Rally Championship), when Ford's Finnish driver Ratwala made a mistake in the race, rolling 150 meters off the cliff and rolling 20 laps. In the end, he himself was not seriously injured, and this picture became a classic of the WRC's highlights over the years.
Domestically, CTCC (China Touring Car Championship) in Shanghai in 2017, the famous driver Jin Chen also had a similar rollover accident. But fortunately, his body was unscathed under the protection of the roll cage. --So it turns out that the roll cage is much stronger than we can imagine!
Plug steel pipes into A-pillars?
Many car companies have really done this!
So if you combine the roll cage with the car A-pillar... Some companies really think about this aspect, such as the British Morgan classic car, A pillar stuffed with wooden strips! Of course, the skeleton of this cargo is all wooden, just kidding. The earliest was Honda's A-plunger steel pipe given to the Odyssey in 2008. After being formed by Marubershun through hydroforming technology, it is supplied to Honda's resistance welded steel pipe. The wall thickness is thin, and it is not a seamless steel pipe, so the strength is far worse than that of the professional roll cage.
After that, Ford began to play with the "steel pipe A-pillar": the A-pillar of the Ford Sharp Escape hid a rolled steel pipe, which extended to the roof of the car. The JEEP Commander, also from the United States, also hides a steel pipe in the A column, with a wall thickness of 2 mm, welded and formed (non-seamless steel pipe), but the coverage area is very large, from the A column to the roof, and then from the roof to the B column, and finally constitute a whole frame.
We have reason to believe that in the future, there will be more and more companies that pay attention to the safety of A-pillar, in addition to A-pillar, even the design of directly combining steel pipe and body skeleton will also appear one after another. For example, Dahuyou itself is developing a series of "mechanical models for the spatial structure of steel pipes", and it is believed that the relevant calculations will be completed in a few months. Let's do our best to improve the safety of our cars!
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