I think the biggest rush of all is to see something that you create succeed. To put a rare brainstorm or light bulb flash into practice and to give it shape and to finally see that it works and well at that; nothing gets better than that. It is hardly surprising to see that parents are overjoyed when they see their kids doing well for themselves. After all, we are our parents' creation.
I was watching this episode a couple of days ago on Discovery channel. Its called smash labs. And yes it has to do with smashing up things, and no, you don't get paid for going at things with a baseball bat or a iron rod. (Notice how I say baseball instead of our desi cricket bat, but I despise cricket in any case, so ...). But the point here was to try and prevent destruction from happening. The challenge in the particular episode was to come up with a solution to help the occupants of a 3 tonne car somehow survive a crash from a 300 tonne moving train doing around 40-50 kmph during collision.
You think air bags and you would be right. Put one in front of the train to cushion the impact of the train on the car parked right in the centre of the track. Sounds trickier than you think. Here are a few problems with that:
1. What material to choose. It should take a lot of strain from the pressure of the impact and not rip apart and yet it should be flexible enough to absorb a large part of the impact. It should also have the ability to be compactly packed when not inflated. After considering rubber tyres, basketballs, buoys and white water raft materials, they went with the raft material.
2. How to inflate the air bag quick enough like say 3-5 seconds before impact, since thats how long the train driver has to trigger the mechanism. A tube pump wont do it. And using a highly compressed cylinder of gas wont cut it since the gas rapidly cools on expansion and freezes the raft material making it brittle. So the went for a system which simultaneously sucks in air from outside along with highly compressed gas from a cylinder to keep the gas from cooling off too fast.
3. Air has to be let out on impact to absorb the shock or the Gs. Air valves to release air didn't work. They were too slow and the bag just ripped apart at the seam. So they went for pressure caps which would blow off above a certain pressure much like the safety valve of the cooker. But getting them to blow off at the right pressure is the tricky part. You don't want it to blow off when the bag is getting inflated. That would defeat the entire purpose.
4. How to strap the bag to the train so that they would not be any loose ends. Any weakness at the seams could cause the bags to blow up prematurely during inflation itself and much before the collision.
They also came up with the novel idea of actually pushing the car off to the side with a fulcrum mechanism to minimize the blow instead of taking it head on. Their were several other finer details but even I am beginning to realize that this piece is becoming a bit tiresome. So I'll omit the rest.
In spite of all the preparation, there were a lot of unknowns. But this design managed to cut down from 8Gs to almost 4Gs the force of impact. This was a huge achievement. Towards the end, as the car got pushed off the track, the wheels got stuck and the car overturned, which is not good news for the inmates of the car. But they did absoerb half the forces of impact.
It was greatly inspiring to see this one hour presentation and made me realize that it is all the more vital to create. If we have a job that lets us create on a daly or even a weekly basis, what more can we ask for. Perhaps, thats why I prefer being an Architect any day over a Verification Engineer. :) However, not many chances to create on my side. Looks like that still needs me to pile up years of experience. Hmm...
I was watching this episode a couple of days ago on Discovery channel. Its called smash labs. And yes it has to do with smashing up things, and no, you don't get paid for going at things with a baseball bat or a iron rod. (Notice how I say baseball instead of our desi cricket bat, but I despise cricket in any case, so ...). But the point here was to try and prevent destruction from happening. The challenge in the particular episode was to come up with a solution to help the occupants of a 3 tonne car somehow survive a crash from a 300 tonne moving train doing around 40-50 kmph during collision.
You think air bags and you would be right. Put one in front of the train to cushion the impact of the train on the car parked right in the centre of the track. Sounds trickier than you think. Here are a few problems with that:
1. What material to choose. It should take a lot of strain from the pressure of the impact and not rip apart and yet it should be flexible enough to absorb a large part of the impact. It should also have the ability to be compactly packed when not inflated. After considering rubber tyres, basketballs, buoys and white water raft materials, they went with the raft material.
2. How to inflate the air bag quick enough like say 3-5 seconds before impact, since thats how long the train driver has to trigger the mechanism. A tube pump wont do it. And using a highly compressed cylinder of gas wont cut it since the gas rapidly cools on expansion and freezes the raft material making it brittle. So the went for a system which simultaneously sucks in air from outside along with highly compressed gas from a cylinder to keep the gas from cooling off too fast.
3. Air has to be let out on impact to absorb the shock or the Gs. Air valves to release air didn't work. They were too slow and the bag just ripped apart at the seam. So they went for pressure caps which would blow off above a certain pressure much like the safety valve of the cooker. But getting them to blow off at the right pressure is the tricky part. You don't want it to blow off when the bag is getting inflated. That would defeat the entire purpose.
4. How to strap the bag to the train so that they would not be any loose ends. Any weakness at the seams could cause the bags to blow up prematurely during inflation itself and much before the collision.
They also came up with the novel idea of actually pushing the car off to the side with a fulcrum mechanism to minimize the blow instead of taking it head on. Their were several other finer details but even I am beginning to realize that this piece is becoming a bit tiresome. So I'll omit the rest.
In spite of all the preparation, there were a lot of unknowns. But this design managed to cut down from 8Gs to almost 4Gs the force of impact. This was a huge achievement. Towards the end, as the car got pushed off the track, the wheels got stuck and the car overturned, which is not good news for the inmates of the car. But they did absoerb half the forces of impact.
It was greatly inspiring to see this one hour presentation and made me realize that it is all the more vital to create. If we have a job that lets us create on a daly or even a weekly basis, what more can we ask for. Perhaps, thats why I prefer being an Architect any day over a Verification Engineer. :) However, not many chances to create on my side. Looks like that still needs me to pile up years of experience. Hmm...
1 comment:
My car should have been made of that material. This should have been invented before the accident. Heck Everything should be made with this material...
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