On Thursday, in article
<
[email protected]>
[email protected] "Badger" wrote:
> "Jonathan Spencer" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > In message <[email protected]>, Badger
> > <[email protected]> writes
> >
> > [sniperoo]
> >
> >>As you rightly point out, a full gas tank is 'kin heavy, the LPGA (Bless
> >>'em!) rulebook gives a "G" value for the security of any mounts but I
> >>can't
> >>remember it at the moment. I think it's something ridiculous like 7g or
> >>thereabouts?
> >
> > Out of curiosity, any takers on how many g is developed by our friend's
> > half-full 100-litre LPG tank when his LR is in a head-on collision with,
> > say, a Mondeo sized car, with each vehicle doing 20mph? More than 7g?
>
> Well, a lot of cars can reach 100% braking efficiency when doing a
> decelerometer test for an MOT, and that's done at 20mph, 100% efficiency for
> a given vehicle mass being equivalent to 1g I assume?? (assumption, the
> mother of all ****-ups!). Highest reading I've seen recently was a P38
> rangie which achieved a decel rate of 155% (1), but that's emergency stop
> stuff, not head-on collision. I'd imagine the impacting of a Mundane might
> add another 2g, possibly, bringing the total to approx 3.5g??
> Badger.
>
> (1). Most vehicles will give considerably higher brake force on the road
> than on the test rollers, due to weight transfer under braking.
1g is an acceleration of 32 feet per second per second (approximate
round figure) and 20mph is just short of 30 feet per second. So we're
not going to be far wrong if we say 32 feet per second for the vehicle
speed, which simplifies the arithmetic slightly.
v**2 = 2*a*s
v=32 a=32 s=distance. Re-arrange and we get:
v*v/a = 2*s which means v/2 = s
So 1g at 20mph is a stopping distance of 16 feet, plus thinking.
Doubling the acceleration halves the distance.
Follow this through, and a 7g limit on those tank fittings gives you a
distance of 28 inches, which is about what you might expect for a car's
crumple zone.
Fortunately, there is an answer to this apparent safety problem.
And if I knew who was driving over that crest into a crossroads at 60mph
I'd tell them to take their bloody foot off the accelerator too.
--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
"I am Number Two," said Penfold. "You are Number Six."