Collision in Western Australia, Australia

  • Context: Undergrad 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Psalter
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    Australia Collision
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a hypothetical scenario involving a collision between two vehicles, one driven by a drunk driver, resulting in a fatal accident. Participants explore the calculation of impact force based on given speeds and weights of the vehicles, while addressing the complexities involved in such calculations.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • One participant presents a scenario involving a collision with specific speeds (27.77 m/s and 41.66 m/s) and weights (1000 kg each) but lacks clarity on how to calculate impact force.
  • Another participant argues that calculating force requires more detailed information about the vehicles and questions the appropriateness of the significant figures used.
  • A different participant suggests using a linear deceleration model from a closing speed of 70 m/s to zero over a distance of 2 meters to estimate impact force, acknowledging the complexity of such calculations.
  • One participant expresses confusion about calculating the force at the moment of impact rather than over a time frame and proposes adjusting calculations to account for crumple zones by reducing the resulting force by 25%.
  • There is a mention of the relevance of nationality in understanding the context of the accident, with a participant admitting to a morbid fascination with the incident.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on how to calculate the impact force, with multiple competing views on the methodology and assumptions involved in the calculations.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the lack of detailed vehicle specifications, assumptions about linear deceleration, and the simplification of crumple zones in the calculations.

Psalter
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As i am new to these forums i do not have any idea of how many of the members might be from Australia. But here is the scenario, it happened 2 days ago i beleive.

A lady was killed when a drunk driver was heading down the free way... in the wrong direction . She was going (v)= 27.77m/s. he was going (v)= 41.66m/s

Assuming that each of their vehicle collided directly and their was no impact force dissapated or redirected by "riccochet" What would be the impact force be if both their vehicles weighed 1000kg each. (including driver)

If you have any queries or need clarification please don't hesitate. I don't have any idea how to calculate the following or i would
 
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You cannot calculate the "force" without much more detailed information about each vehicle. Are your four significant figures appropriate? Is this a hypothetical (homework) problem, or some morbid fascination with recent tragedy? Why is nationality relevant?
 
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The force depends on the deformation of both cars and is pretty difficult to calculate. That's what crash tests are for. But you might try assuming the pair decelerates linearly from its 70m/s closing speed to zero in 2 meters (1 for each car), and plug that into the Newtonian motion equations.
 
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What about pure amount of force at the moment of impact, not over a lineal time frame ?

As you can tell i am very much a physics noob --.--, didn't pay enough attention at school and then decided to drop out and become a chef... big mistake .

As for the deceleration, i think that would be a appropriate to say that they decelerated from 70m/s to zero in 2 meters

For this instance should we say that crumple points do not exist on the cars and compensate for that by taking off 25% of the resulting force in the calculations to take into account crumple points, as inaccurate as this may be.

In reply to Csfrogs post,

I only mentioned nationality because chances are if you were in australia you would of heard about the crash.
Its a morbid fascination
The figures specified are appropriate, from my my previous knowledge in physics i know the general velocity unit of measurement is m/s so i took the time to convert the speeds.

Off topic question, Why did you pick Caesium?
 
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Still would like some help with this please guys
 

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