Thread: Can the concept of the Newton's cradle be introduced in the design of cars to...

...make it safer? It's really just a hypothetical idea and I'm not exactly a mechanical engineer, but picture this:

when one ball hits the remaining balls, it is the last ball that takes in all the force of the impact because the force of impact is distributed and passed to the last ball, effecting no change in the forces acting on the other balls.

I think it can make for a safety design in impact safety if it can be integrated into the design of cars.

So car A has a mass equal to that of car A, loosely fitted to its rear. When car B (of mass equal to car A) hits car A (head-on) this rear mass detaches itself from car A and departs down the road in the initial direction of car B! So it works! Or does it? Have the passengers now come to a halt or are they moving on fixed to car B in their original direction but now out of control? Either way is pretty bad looking for the occupants.

But car A and the loose mass have to be very rigid so as to transmit the impact through to the loose mass. They cannot be shock absorbent as are modern cars. Things also look different if car B also has such a loose mass - then the occupants of car A will have a much tougher time.

Then again, if car A gets hit in the rear instead of head on, then it (the passenger compartment) takes a double whack! This will be terrible on the occupants.

Furthermore every car ends up weighing twice as much as before which will severely impact the fuel consumption, parking problems, handling and so on.

Looks like the concept needs some further thinking.

dont know how it would work, the impact would still hit the passengers