Cellbond creates a pedestrian-friendly car bonnet designed to reduce head injury

In a typical car crash scenario with a pedestrian involved, when the pedestrian is initially impacted by the car he then hits the ground. Most of the fatalities and life-threatening head injuries occur when there is not enough clearance between the bonnet of the car and the underlying engine components. This new model of pedestrian-friendly car bonnet hopes to make use of an aluminium mechanical energy absorber.

The absorber hopes to work via a force-absorbing sheet of metal. The metal is etched into a grid format allows for an absorption of the impact energy with less resultant reaction forces, the forces which causes the impact injury. Basically, the bonnet is designed to collapse inward upon impact.

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When one considers that head impacts account for roughly 14% in the United States and 20% in Europe, this bonnet could save many lives. When the Head Impact Criteria test, a common test to measure the severity of a cars impact on the human head, was applied the test results showed that the Cellbond design reduced the Head Impact Criteria score by 50-60%.

The Cellbond car bonnet is currently being assessed by a number of motor manufacturers and the research will continue.

More information: http://www.cellbon … t/index.aspx

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