Just found it on good old YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r8E5dUnLmh4 basically they are saying 50+50=50 if the car hitting you is the same... I wouldn't expect the same if it was a lorry.
Ahh... Hang on. That refers to damage on each car. The energy involved (and therefore transferred into another form) will be double in the overall crash. Plus, as you say, change it so different vehicles are involved and the outcome is very different.
Energy = 1/2 mv
2So you'll have 4 times the energy in a car doing 120 MPH as a car doing 60 MPH, or 2 times as much as 2 identical cars doing 60MPH. Energy into the crash is doubled, therefore, for a single car hitting a stopped one at 120 MPH as opposed to a 60MPH head-on between 2 cars.
What that energy does then is another matter. The video showed a car hitting another that was up against a solid obstruction. Not a likely scenario, since the energy is all absorbed by the two cars. More likely, the stopped car would get punted up the road and a lot of the energy would go in accelerating it, decelerating the moving car less rapidly and resulting in less intrusion into the passenger cell.
Matters little in this case. To bring you to rest without fatal deceleration forces and passenger cell intrusion you need a much longer bonnet at 120 MPH.
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Topic: Omega 200 Kmh crash test video (Read 4454 times)