Who told you that??? LOL isnt it better to get involved in JW's forum's life and have valuable discussion in the threads than senceless spamming? + spam is still bannable outside the Spammers Corner if I am not wrong according to the rules.

Sorry for OT again :oops:

I have NO education whatsoever in car construction but from my point of view the car should stay in one piece to absorbe energy etc what safety can add you smashing into something with back your seats cause theres nothing behind your seats :shock:

Do not question me! If you feel inclined to do so, then get off my Internets n00b!

from a simple phisics standpoint, lets assume that car A has some mass.

Car A is then split in two in an accident at speed, thus becoming Car A , and Car Aa

Car A has the occupants

Car Aa has a greater portion of the mass, IE, Engine, Transaxle, fuel.

Car Aa will have greater Momentum, even when traveling at the same speed as Car A; remember, Momentum is Mass x Velocity.

With Car A (occupants) having less mass, it requires less forces (under no grip circomstances) to come to a halt; thus disipating some of the impact... less momentum = less force to stop the car = less injury in the saftey cage.

One of the saftey components of Carbon Fibre is its unique ability of absorbing impact, if taken at the proper direction, IE, headon; as it literally disapaits the energy in a constant mannor; rather then a strictly abrupt stop, or change in direction; which could more easily kill the occupants depending on the G load.

That said, there are tollerances which an are not specifically designed for; such as a 200 mph crash into a telephone pole; this is where the real world becomes the labratory.. but sure, a computer model can help come close to modeling such instances with finite element analysis

didnt think of that, thanx for explanation Nth :) they just need to pray noone crash in them or they crash in something from the back side of Car A cause it would be instant death.

What is difficult for car designers to design around is a tree or pole hit at high speed. The entire energy of the collision is focused on a very small area. It acts like a knife shearing the car apart. If the car can bounce off due to angle of attack or rigidity of the area hit all the better, however if the tree or pole can dig in, the dividing process begins untill the car is in two pieces or untill it reaches something something more substantial.

Had the Malibu Enzo hit the pole a foot further forward the out come probably would have been completely different for the occupants.

There is a photo on the internet of a boxter wreck where a tree or pole was hit at high speed head on. Since it was a boxter it probably was at a slower speed than these Enzo crashes since the Enzo can accelerate so quickly. The tree parted the car through the middel all the way to the engine. (seats laying on the ground again) The doors were still attached but were under the car flat against the ground. The car was not even recognizeable. The steering wheel with deployed air bag did not even stay with the car.

I have assumed many of the tragic deaths we read about in WRC racing were due to trees. I'm not sure exactly of the quote, but a driver was asked if they watch out for the spectators, he said no they watch out for trees.

Who has seen this picture?

[From FChat]

"We can see that the Enzo is not broken in two parts...as my father saw saturday in Nice.

The picture is taken from the Cote d'azur airport camera.

Thanks to mikigta for the picture." - poppy84

http://i13.tinypic.com/49fxwth.jpg

Thanks alot,
Atleast I got some more info on this lol.

im too lazy to read 3 pages :P ...
sooo ..these new supercars are desined to shed parts depending on the angle and force of the impact resulting in absorbng aot of the crash energy ....... thus wrecking the car like there is no tomorro and saving the innocent poor lives of people who think the car didnt crash because of them ..... just like formula 1 cars ... except for the ^^ last part offcorse :P ...

ohh and welcome .... :D ...

Thanks for the Ferrari photo, I had n't seen it. Was it torn in two by the fire department to put the fire out?

That seems to be the conclusion many are coming to. I'm not sure why the fire department would want to do that, but it does call into question the idea that this was another instance of an Enzo splitting in half in a crash.

I don't have the wherewithal to test the flamability of carbon fibre myself... but lest we forget that the Houston Enzo burnt to a crisp and we coudln't even see the outline of what the car once was.

I might guess that flames might weaken the structure of carbon fibre? does anybody have any more info on this?

I imagine that the extreme heat of the fire would weaken the carbon fibre structure. I'm not an expert or anything, and I've never really played with it, but beacuse it is bonded together by heat, I imagine that heat would weaken it, possibly causing it to break.

As for cutting it in half to put out the fire i doubt it very much. To cut a car you have to get up close and personal to the car, and from the picture, it looks like the flames were quite intense, so I highly doubt that they cut the car in half. Plus, when they do cut cars, they do it to get someone out, so normally all they do is cut off the roof so they are able to extricate someone. To put out a fire, they just use a hella lot of water.

Isn't carbon fibre just like fiberglass only with carbon fibre instead of fibreglass. I know there's some baking involved. Do they use the gel stuff and is that what burns? Carbon burns right? or is thats what's left after combustion is finished.

Do Corvettes burn or just melt? Do Enzo's burn or just melt?

I thought the newpaper photo showed the two pieces pretty far apart.

I'm talking out my ass again, arn't I.

Carbon fibre isn't like fiberglass

fiberglass is a plastic resin to which glued glass fibers offer it strength to the plastic resin...

carbon fibre is set to a mold, and later painted, and sealed...

...and modern Vettes (and many other GM products, and then bits GM makes for other manufacturers) are SMC, sheet molding compound - with unique and special compounds of resin and fibres constituting a mastic.