Anyone who has driven a car should know that the bumper of the car is the most important safety device to alleviate the external impact and protect the front and rear parts of the car, whether it is a car or a supercar, it needs to be equipped, without exception.
In general, the material used in the bumper of a car is mostly steel or plastic, or carbon fiber. But there was a car company that came up with a bold and almost "crazy" idea: to use wood to make a car bumper.
The bold idea was proposed by the household name Toyota Motor Corporation. In 2017, Toyota Motor Corporation filed a patent application for a "wooden bumper" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
In most people's minds, wood is mostly used to make furniture, but Toyota uses it as a bumper that needs to be hit, is this really safe? Let's talk about it.
In fact, the wooden design bumper has certain advantages over the traditional plastic and steel insurance in some aspects. The car will produce a lot of impact force when it collides, if the bumper is too hard, it will cause the impact force to pass directly into the car, causing certain damage to the human body.
As we all know, wood has good energy absorption, when the car collides, it can decompose the impact force, play a great cushioning role, and effectively reduce the damage to personnel inside and outside the car.
At the same time, the wood is also plastic, and its ring grain direction and thickness can be changed according to the needs of the vehicle, which can adapt to different load absorption characteristics.
According to public information from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, as of now, patent applications for "wooden bumpers" have not been granted. The use of wood materials as bumpers can indeed effectively reduce the cost of car building, but the problem of forest resource consumption still needs to be overcome. Whether the application will eventually be approved is still unknown.