I have a headache.
How about avoiding crashing into a wall and head on with other cars.
Makes sense gentlemen?
How about avoiding crashing into a wall and head on with other cars.
Makes sense gentlemen?
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two cars crashing at 50mph = 1 car crashing at 100mph?
- Thread starter NsXMas
- Start date
Thanks for the equation, yea I'd love to have them do this test and see how the cars end up looking like. It might be more damage than two cars crashing at 50mph each, or might not. :smile:
Bryan - our resident mechanical engineer, provided the equation: Force = ½ mass * velocity ^2 , so it's not linear.
LOL then mythbusters would be boring and we'd have no fun!
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.....LOL then mythbusters would be boring and we'd have no fun!
I liked the one that they did on the BATMAN suit made by Universal Designs.
I will neither confirm nor deny that I own either or both BATMAN Begins & Dark Knight.
LOL that was pretty sweet. :biggrin:
It would be very interesting because you are going to have significantly higher kinetic energy (way more than double as you mentioned) however, the reactive forces of a stationary car is very limited as the tires will only provide so much resistive forces. Too many variables (coefficient of restitution, deformation of materials, coeficient of static and dynamic friction of the tires etc.) to really be able to accurately model and say for sure. Only one way to find out! Got 2 spare cars? :biggrin:
Whoops, I should clarify, the equation is for Kinetic Energy:
KE = 1/2 m * v^2
which is what we are interested in. Just wanted to clarify lest I get called out for incorrectly writing:
Force = 1/2 m * v^2
since energy is not techincally a force.
No, the kinetic energy of the system is doubled (exactly). It's not "much more than double" - it's just purely doubled.
do you mean quadrupled?
Not sure if you mean if you are comparing the kinetic energy of one car travelling at 50 mph two cars travelling at 50 mph or one car travelling at 50 mph to one car travelling at 100 mph.
If you are comparing one car travelling at 50 mph to two cars travelling at 50 mph, then yes the total kinetic energy is doubled.
If you are comparing one car travelling at 50 mph to one car travelling at 100 mph, then the kinetic energy is quadrupled since the equation for kinetic energy is ½ * mass * velocity^2
Lol, yeah he needed another plane on a treadmill debate. :biggrin:
Im an engineer, ive been over this 100 times. If your going 50mph in an NSX, and you have a head on collision with another NSX, also going 50mph, it is NOT the same as crashing one NSX into a wall at 100mph, as far as body damange to your NSX goes.. It is roughly the same as crashing one NSX into a wall at 50mph. I think of it this way, a solid wall stops your NSX dead. The only way an incoming car can stop you dead is if it matches your mass and velocity. If the car you were hitting was doing 30mph, you would impact at point A, and come to a complete stop at point B, located X distance away, which denotes a less severe crash.
The question is what denotes a 50mph crash, technically it would be hitting a solid wall. Obviously hitting a wall that was doing 50mph, while you were doing 50mph, would be worse than hitting a stationary wall while you were doing 50mph. Im not even sure what the question is anymore but what i posted above it infact correct, the idea behind the mythbuster test is to compare swerving right and hitting a tree (immovable) or swerving left into oncoming traffic. The intuitive thinking is that oncoming traffic would result in twice as much damage, but infact it would be roughly the same as with the tree collision.
In reference to kinetic energy, in the head on collision scenario, yes, the total energy of the system is double than that of the wall collision, but BOTH cars are absorbing the energy, as apposed to the wall where all the energy is absorbed by one car. So there is twice the energy but twice the absorption- resulting in 50mph damage for both cars, as seen in the test
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I'm saying neither (both of your examples are correct though).
I'm saying that one car traveling at 100mph has double the kinetic energy of two cars traveling at 50 mph. That's why I used the word "system".
I agree with Vega$ NSX.
Car hits wall at 100 mph. Wall exerts same amount of force to stop it.
Car hits car is essentially the same thing. Car 1 at 50 mph hits Car 2 at 50 mph. both forces cancel out since they are equal and opposite; therefore only 50 mph force exerted to stop each vehicle.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Car hits wall at 100 mph. Wall exerts same amount of force to stop it.
Car hits car is essentially the same thing. Car 1 at 50 mph hits Car 2 at 50 mph. both forces cancel out since they are equal and opposite; therefore only 50 mph force exerted to stop each vehicle.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Energy is not a force? Ugghh, tell that to this guy.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...8&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0&tx=135&ty=33&safe=activehttp://content7.flixster.com/photo/11/05/08/11050889_gal.jpg
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