The Automotive Engineering course at the HTW Berlin carries out a vehicle crash once or twice a year in collaboration with the TU Berlin. The students’ constructive ideas are verified in experiments.
One of the HTW’s research projects is to prevent a trailer drawbar from penetrating the towing vehicle in the event of a crash. Such crashes are rarely tested by the vehicle industry, as minimizing the consequences of such serious accidents is not currently part of the development specifications for new vehicle types. Before the students began to think about the design, a completely standard vehicle with an equally standard trailer was driven into a rigid barrier at 50 km/h. The penetration of the drawbar into the towing vehicle was first examined in detail, and from this study the students developed design measures for the towing vehicle or trailer. Some of the various ideas were selected and pursued further. Ultimately, these changes were carried out on vehicles and the crash test was repeated under the same conditions. Some of the changes examined were promising, others less so.
For the test on January 9, 2012, a solid steel plate was attached to the drawbar of the trailer, which, the idea was, was supposed to be supported on the rear longitudinal member of the towing vehicle’s body. However, the crash showed that the drawbar and steel plate pressed into the rear of the towing vehicle above the body longitudinal member. The test therefore failed, and we now know that this design change did not lead to the desired result. Students in the next semester will probably have to take a look at it again…
The photos attached are a small selection of the crash. You can clearly see how the drawbar drilled into the rear of the towing vehicle and it is easy to imagine that this would not have ended well for any passengers in the back seats. In one of the photos you can even see how the ball head of the trailer coupling on the towing vehicle broke off and the trailer was thus able to move completely freely into the towing vehicle.
Thanks to our company’s collaboration with the HTW, our employees have the opportunity to watch such crash tests – an opportunity that is only available to a few car mechanics. In the next crash test, seat belts that have been retrofitted will be tested. As part of his bachelor’s thesis, a student thought about the retrofitting of seat belts in classic cars. In our workshop, a front seat belt will then be fitted according to his specifications and, in the crash, this belt will be compared with the standard belt on the other side of the vehicle. In this way, we want to gather as much knowledge as possible about the retrofitting of seat belts. So if you have us install seat belts in your classic car, you can be sure that this will be done with the utmost care and in accordance with the latest findings.
