Volvo Cars Safety Centre under new leadership
Volvo Car Corporation announces the appointment of Hans Nyth as Manager of the Volvo Cars Safety Centre. Nyth will take the lead role with the company's research and development in the field of automotive safety.
Nyth has a solid 35-year background at Volvo Cars, with extensive experience from producing cars and design.
"Realising our vision - that no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo by the year 2020 - requires a continued holistic approach to safety," says Nyth. "Our priorities are concentrated on three areas: people, the infrastructure and the car itself. Volvo Cars' work with safety has echoed round the world. In order to retain a leading position with respect to safety, it will remain essential in future to base our work in this area on know-how and our own rigorous safety requirements and to use the right technology to support the driver in various traffic situations."
The Volvo Cars Safety Centre is a unique crash test laboratory, located between Volvo Cars' technical centre and the company's Torslanda manufacturing plant in Gothenburg.
Also based at the Safety Centre, Volvo Cars' Accident Research Team has compiled data from real-world traffic collisions since 1970 and now has a database containing information about more than 36,000 collisions involving over 60,000 occupants. Knowledge gained from what happens before, during and after a real-world collision forms the foundation of the company's research initiatives. It also provides the opportunity to reconstruct the chain of events of a studied collision in the crash test lab, with the results intensely studied by Volvo Cars' designers and technicians.
Year-round crash tests
The enclosed crash test lab offers a virtually infinite number of opportunities to vary testing conditions and to conduct reconstructions of collisions from actual traffic situations.
The two test tracks measure 108 and 154 metres in length. With one moveable and one stationary track, the lab has the capacity to test different collisions at various angles and speeds, including having two vehicles in motion. Safety engineers also use an 800-tonne mobile collision barrier to test frontal collisions, side impacts and rear-end collisions. The lab is also large enough to accomodate buses and trucks for barrier crash tests.
On the fixed track, passenger vehicles can be crashed at speeds up to 120 km/h and, outside, roll-over tests can be conducted. A large outdoor area adjacent to the building is used to recreate full-scale traffic environments.
Approximately 400 full-scale tests are conducted each year. They are all filmed from a number of different angles using digital, high-speed cameras and both the vehicles and the crash barrier are equipped with a multitude of sensors.
The latest technology in the Volvo XC60
The Volvo XC60 is the safest vehicle the company has ever built, incorporating all of the latest technologies for protective and preventive safety. These systems include a two-stage integrated booster cushion with a force limiting safety belt, City Safety, the Driver Alert System and the Blind Spot Information System (BLIS).
Approximately 120 XC60s and thousands of virtual prototypes "made the supreme sacrifice" in the Safety Centre before its launch in 2008.
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