Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:52:24 -0500
Reply-To: Julian Burden <julian.burden@SYMPATICO.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Julian Burden <julian.burden@SYMPATICO.CA>
Subject: Re: re. Vanagon bull bars/brush guards...
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Ahhh - I remember my days as a Mech Eng student . . .
We had a similar competition - to build a device to hurl an unboiled egg as
far as possible without breaking the egg. Method of propulsion was 5
"standard" rubber bands.
There were all sorts of rules and regs, I put heaps of thought into it and
thought my device was quite clever - it wasn't.
<Cut Long Story Short>
The guy who came second had done no work. He came along, used one of the
bands as a sling-shot on his hand - no device around the egg!
After his egg survived we all (hey, Eng students, remember?) started
throwing these RAW eggs around, and none of them broke! (The ground was very
soft and muddy.)
Now, whose idea was it to invite the media into the University and arm a
bunch of Eng students with eggs???
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Dalton" <dieselsong@YAHOO.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 12:59 AM
Subject: Re: re. Vanagon bull bars/brush guards...
> Exactly! The bumper just has to collapse at the
> proper rate for a high speed crash. Some University
> showed an experiment where mechanical engineering
> students were trying to keep an egg on a falling
> platform from breaking when it hit the ground. No
> amount of cushioning under the egg kept it from
> breaking. The egg (just like a person) acquired too
> much velocity to survive when it stopped suddenly even
> against a soft pillow surface. A couple of tin cans
> with their ends cut out when mounted under the
> platform did the trick, because they collapsed along
> their long dimension absorbing the energy so the egg
> didn't have to. I feel frustrated sometimes because
> it seems like the principles of making a car safer are
> well known. Unfortunately it would take some clever
> mechanical design to figure out how to incorporate
> structures like those tin cans in front of the
> vanagon.
>
> Rob
>
>
>
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