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The Physics Behind Vehicle Crumple Zones

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The physics behind Vehicle Crumple Zones

The crumple zone is a constructive feature mainly used, in the front and sometimes rear, in motor vehicles and has recently been integrated into railcars. They have been specifically designed to absorb the energy from the impact of a crash by controlled distortion, which absorbs majority of the impact energy.

Newton’s second law states that “The relationship between the resultant force, Fres, that acts on an object of mass, m, to produce the acceleration, a, of the object is F=ma”. (Year 12 Physics ESA by David Housden). Therefore, as F=ma, Newton said that the greater the mass of an object the more motion (Motion is the change in the position of an object with relation to time. It is defined in terms …show more content…

Momentum (symbol p) is calculated by multiplying the mass, m, and velocity, v, by the use of the formula …show more content…

This is because when a force acts on an object it accelerates it, and thus, the object’s momentum changes. Therefore, a resultant force is the only thing that can change an object’s momentum. A resultant force can change the direction of an object, and therefore, the momentum, as well as changing the speed to change the momentum. However, it is relatively difficult for a resultant force to change the mass of an object. It is possible though. For instance, when a car is accelerating, it is gradually losing its fuel, and the more fuel it loses the more its mass will change. That means that it could be losing momentum as it accelerates, and this will be caused by the resultant force accelerating it in the direction of motion. The loss of momentum is not a certainty because the car would be getting faster (increasing velocity), and therefore, this may cancel out the loss of mass in the form of fuel being burned. However, we live in an imperfect world so it is challenging to get accurate results because on Earth there are consistently forces like gravity or friction acting at all times and creating a resultant force. This resultant force will always result in changing the momentum of an

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