Volvo equipped with an ultra-high pressure water cannon made for impact testing

Automobile safety tests are carried out assuming quite a variety of situations. Among them are those that are quite critical, such as ... if another car is thrusting from the side in a running car, but I can not translate actually bumping a car to the car on which the test driver got on .

Therefore, Ford's research group developed an ultra-high pressure water cannon system to install at the rear of the car. Since we shoot a large amount of water and reproduce the shock of the collision using the recoil, we do not have to hit the thing in practice and we ensure the safety of the test driver to the utmost.

Details are below. Looking at it from the front, it is quite a normal car, but something unfamiliar is sticking to the rear part


This is the body of Water Cannon. The muzzle is mounted sideways, and the pipe contains about 10 gallons of water.




Behind the cannon.



High pressure compressed air of 135 psi (9.5 kgf / cm 2) is contained in this orange tank, and if water is injected using this, lateral shock occurs at acceleration of 2 G. Since the drive recorder for recording traffic accidents operates at an acceleration of 0.4 to 0.8 G, the 2 G shock can be said to be a rather bad collision.


Test drivers to get on the test car with complete defense. Pressing the red button at the tip of the thumb fires zudon and water


Water is spurting with considerable force. The movie is here.
YouTube - Volvo Water Cannon? Volvo Stability Control Test


Since the whole system is still too large and too heavy, it is impossible to conduct accurate tests because the weight balance of the whole will change as it is loaded on test vehicles, but the research team is promoting miniaturization, and in the future It will be installed on such vehicles and will be able to test.

Other photos and movies are here
Jalopnik - Riding The "Volvo Water Cannon" - Volvo Water Cannon