October
5, 1998 Design News
Washington Beat
Technical news from the nation's
capital
by Walter Wingo,Washington
Editor
U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium declared
'overly ambitious'
A government-industry project to invent a practical
battery for electric vehicles is trying to do too much
too soon. So concludes a study by a committee of the
National Research Council. The U.S. Advanced Battery
Consortium (USABC) was formed in 1991 as an R&D
project of the Department of Energy and the three major
U.S. automakers. The purpose was to provide increased
range and improved performance for electric vehicles
"in the latter part of the 1990s." No technology
has yet fully met even the midterm goals, the report
says, because USABC had "an overly ambitious schedule
imposed by regulatory requirements." (See "Nation's
charge to electric cars stalls" in this issue.)
For copies of "Effectiveness of the United States
Advanced Battery Consortium as a Government-Industry
Partnership" phone National Academy Press at (800)
624-6242.
Requirement for head protection revised
to allow new devices
The latest advances in inflatable head barriers are
now permitted in cars sold in the U.S. The National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has revised
its standards for preventing head injuries during side-impact
and rollover accidents. In 1995, NHTSA issued rules
for adding protection to the heads of passengers beyond
what is provided by forward-mounted airbags. At first,
most car makers planned to meet the requirement, which
began phasing in this September 1, by adding padding
to the upper interior of cars. In the interim, however,
design engineers devised devices similar to airbags
that expand across the roofs of cars in accidents. A
problem is that the devices won't deploy through heavy
padding. So NHTSA decided on a tradeoff. It will reduce
the speed used in crash tests of cars with the devices
in uninflated states, in favor of the bigger benefits
offered in more severe crashes. But vehicles equipped
with such systems also will have to comply with a new
test in which the vehicle is crashed into a pole. NHTSA
will use a new side-impact crash dummy in the pole test.
The head injury rule applies to 10% of 1999 models,
but will apply to 100% of year 2003 production models.
Big benefit seen for car makers from
research in die making
A single automaker will spend as much as $2 billion
each year perfecting dies to press sheet steel into
body parts for new car models. Sometimes manufacturers
must redesign a die as many as 10 times before discovering
the mold that forms the proper shape. A new technique,
however, promises to assure that the die of the future
needs to be cast but once. The technique was described
at the American Crystallographic Association meeting
in Arlington, VA. Scientists at the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) used an advanced
measurement technique, known as in-situ ultrasmall-angle
X-ray scattering, to study the evolution of complex
defect structures in deformed metals. They designed
a special sample holder called a tensile stage for deforming
samples in the x-ray beam. Thus engineers can study
minute details about the formation of defects while
the metal is being stretched and probed by the x-rays.
NIST is devising a theoretical model connecting the
observed defect structures with the mechanical properties
of various materials. It's the first step toward developing
new computer models that could help manufacturers slice
die costs. Phone NIST's Gabrielle Long at (301) 975-5975
or Lyle Levine at (301) 975-6032.
NHTSA proposes reducing glare from daytime
running lights
NHTSA wants to change its vehicle safety standards
for lighting to reduce the problem of glare from some
daytime running lamps (DRLs). The agency proposes a
three-step approach. First, it would require that DRLs
based on upper beam headlights be reduced in intensity
by more than half in newly manufactured vehicles beginning
one year after the final rule. A year later, lower beam
DRLs on new vehicles would be limited to about half
the currently-permitted intensity. Three years after
that DRLs on all new autos would be limited to about
one-quarter of the intensity of today's brightest DRLs.
Phone NHTSA's Tim Hurd at (202) 366-9550.
Agency to fund use of cadavers for improving
auto crash tests
Cadavers in many ways are better than instrumented
dummies in auto crash tests. Acknowledging that, NHTSA
is offering five-year grants of up to $2.75 million
for research that uses cadavers to examine the effect
of airbags and safety belts on the human body during
collisions. Officials of the safety agency say the program
seeks to determine "engineering parameters"
of biomechanical responses of cadavers to impact. Another
goal is to develop "mechanical analogs" of
the human body that can be used in the design of more
realistic dummies for crash tests of new cars and trucks.
Phone NHTSA project manager F. A. Bandak at (202) 366-4737.
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