Accord Euro Crash test vids i found

[tanalasta]

What is the NCAP rating of the Euro (Limited/Luxury) with the curtain airbags?

[aaronng]

4 star for the base without curtain airbags. Not sure what is the NCAP for the Lux. http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xch...768EC-2D3463B7

[mastcell]

What do you mean? 80km/h to the wall will kill people already from the internal injuries sustained from the deceleration forces.

You have to calculate it in order to determine which has more damage to the car. In both cases, momentum is conserved, but for inelastic collisions kinetic energy is lost as the car crumples. In a 2 car head on collision, the lost energy is absorbed by both cars crumpling. In a car-to-wall collision, the energy is absorbed by the car alone since the wall is immovable. So my guess is that a 80km/h wall test is equivalent to 2 cars head on at 80km/h (total 160km/h) assuming that both cars crumple the same and absorbed the same energy.

Although the physics of crashing two cars into each other vs one car crashing onto a wall is different, the momentum (kinetic energy) is conserved with the human subject travelling in the car. A lot of injury can result from sudden deceleration, like breaking an artery off the heart leading to massive internal bleeding. The effect of a crash on human passenger and the car is quite different and may not always be proportionate the the damage to the car and the 'total' crumple zone(s).

[hip]

Not sure if the Euro is any different than the TSX when it comes to head restraints (I suspect not) but considering it's high rating in frontal crash testing the one area it comes up short is in "seat/head restraint, rear-end crash protection."

To be fair, a number of cars come up short here unless they offer active head restraints which will soon be mandatory in the U.S.

Rear crash protection: Acura

[ginganggooly]

No, it is not the same as running into a wall at 160km/h. Because the 2 cars will crush and absorb the impact force. When crashing into a wall, all of the impact force goes into that one car. Elastic and inelastic collisions

Additionally...
Kinetic energy is a scalar quantity (has magnitude but no direction). So if we're talking about a direct, head-on smash, you just add the kinetic energy of both vehicles and you get the total kinetic energy for the impact- This is working under the assumption that the momentum is effectively canceled out (momentum is a vector and has magnitude AND direction).


You can see pretty clearly that there is significantly more kinetic energy in a 1000kg vehicle moving at 160km/h than two 1000kg vehicles traveling at 80km/h. Hence, more meat balls at a 160km/h crash into an immovable object (immovable meaning doesn't absorb the kinetic energy)

In simple terms, there is double the amount of kinetic energy in the higher speed impact.

To complicate things a little further, if the car travelling at 160km/h happens to smash into stationary car, the stationary car will absorb half of the total kinetic energy, and you end up with the same kinetic energy as two cars of equal mass, travelling at 80km/h having a perfectly head on collision.

[hip]

Additionally...
Kinetic energy is a scalar quantity (has magnitude but no direction). So if we're talking about a direct, head-on smash, you just add the kinetic energy of both vehicles and you get the total kinetic energy for the impact- This is working under the assumption that the momentum is effectively canceled out (momentum is a vector and has magnitude AND direction).


You can see pretty clearly that there is significantly more kinetic energy in a 1000kg vehicle moving at 160km/h than two 1000kg vehicles traveling at 80km/h. Hence, more meat balls at a 160km/h crash into an immovable object (immovable meaning doesn't absorb the kinetic energy)

In simple terms, there is double the amount of kinetic energy in the higher speed impact.

To complicate things a little further, if the car travelling at 160km/h happens to smash into stationary car, the stationary car will absorb half of the total kinetic energy, and you end up with the same kinetic energy as two cars of equal mass, travelling at 80km/h having a perfectly head on collision.

So to put it simply:
Driving smoothly = Good
striking an immovable or opposing object - Very Bad

[ginganggooly]

So to put it simply:
Driving smoothly = Good
striking an immovable or opposing object - Very Bad

[Jaso]

http://www.euroncap.com/tests/honda_..._2003/169.aspx

Euro NCAP...

[EUR003act]

These days its not external injuries (smacking your head into the windscreen/getting crushed by the a-pillar) that kill you in an accident, its the internal injuries. the car slows down/stops so quickly that the inertia slams all your internal organs into your rib cage blah blah blah. basically you die from complications/internal bleeding/vital organ shut down. thats why cars try use things like load limiting seatbelts that release slowly at high G's, impact crush zones, and honda's very own Gcon (g force control).