[femto]

One wonders whether there is a place for "Active Crumple Zones"? Instead of a car having to weigh more that the opposition, it carries an explosive charge in it's nose, which is used to provide a burst of forward momentum to the leading edge of the car during a crash, preventing it from being forced back into the passenger compartment. One can imagine refinements, such as inertial sensing and a feedback loop to control the size of the discharge, so the "virtual" weight of the light vehicle matches the vehicle that it is colliding with.

Count this as idle speculation rather then a serious proposal! Mind you, if a bike was equipped with such a system a 4WD owner would get a big surprise when they ran into a cyclist and got like-for-like.

Edit: I guess I'm really describing Reactive Armour for everyday vehicles.

[CRConrad]

> Instead of a car having to weigh more that the opposition, it carries an explosive charge in it's nose, which is used to provide a burst of forward momentum to the leading edge of the car during a crash, preventing it from being forced back into the passenger compartment.

> Edit: I guess I'm really describing Reactive Armour for everyday vehicles.

Or basically an external airbag.

[rootusrootus]

> "virtual" weight of the light vehicle matches the vehicle that it is colliding with.

I imagine physics would intrude at some point and make this a non-starter.

[jacquesm]

Collision with a pedestrian as well.

[boogies]

How powerful and effective could that be without launching the lighter vehicle backwards with dangerous force?

[femto]

From a purely theoretical point of view, if there was a perfect feedback control loop the energy of the explosion could be controlled to bring the front of both vehicles to a perfect stop. Both vehicles would then crumple about that stationary point.

From a practical point of view ...

[jacquesm]

Trying to imagine two such vehicles colliding head on...

[jacquesm]

Oh that's evil :)