| The Volvo Safety Centre |
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After watching a full-scale two-car crash test Prince Michael said: “I have never seen anything else on the scale of the Volvo Safety Centre.” The Centre uses the know-how accumulated from decades of Volvo’s safety research work and the expertise of the foremost safety engineers in the automotive world to carry out sophisticated computerised simulations and component tests, while a unique crash laboratory can simulate actual accidents between two vehicles using two separate tracks that can be angled at up to 90 degrees. The tracks allow car-to-car impacts from the side or head-on and the ability to combine the two tracks, one of which can be moved. Volvo Safety Centre chief Ingrid Skogsmo says: “We can move the reality of the roads into our crash laboratory. As Volvo’s strategy involves developing and launching new products at an ever-increasing rate, increased capacity is also needed for safety research. The Centre gives us the technology and capacity to continue being the world leaders in the field of safety.” A “supercomputer” at the Centre allows the simulation of a crash situation any number of times using different speeds, different safety systems and different body sizes for the occupants. Such technology makes it possible for Volvo to determine a car’s safety characteristics long before any physical prototypes are available for crash tests. Tests in the laboratory conditions of the Centre are one issue, but vital to improving road safety is the work carried out by Volvo’s Traffic Accident Research Team, which was established in 1970. The team investigates accidents involving Volvos at the scene and follows that up with interviews with car occupants and studies of medical records to obtain accurate descriptions of personal injuries. As a result of the team’s work, know-how gained from actual accidents is utilised in product development. Volvo’s Side Impact Protection System was developed specifically as a result of the team’s work, as was WHIPS (Whiplash Protection System) – which offers protection from neck injuries in rear-end collisions – and also Volvo’s comprehensive range of child-safety products.
That development led to all Volvo car head restraints being placed in the highest category in the New Car Whiplash Ratings published by Thatcham Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre in October last year. To establish the ratings static tests were carried out to measure the design and position of head restraints in 500 car models. Volvo safety engineer and whiplash specialist Lotta Jakobsson says: “Volvo has long understood how important head restraints are and led the industry in introducing them. After having the WHIPS system in our cars in real-life traffic since 1998, the feedback from our accident research team shows very promising results.”
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