Volvo Cars Crash-Test Laboratory’s 10 Year Anniversary.
Volvo Cars’ crash-test laboratory in Sweden celebrates it’s 10th anniversary this year. The 3,000 full-scale tests that have been carried out there have helped ensure Volvo remain the industry leaders for safety.
“The risk of being involved in an accident or being injured in one of our latest car models has more than halved compared with a Volvo from the 1970’s. We are continuously taking new steps towards our vision that nobody should die or suffer serious injuries in a new Volvo car by the year 2020. The crash-test laboratory is a central part of this development” says Thomas Broberg, Senior Safety Advisor at Volvo Cars.
The crash-test laboratory has one fixed and one movable test track. The movable track can be adjusted from 0 to 90 degrees in order to carry out tests involving a variety of incident and accident scenarios at different angles and speeds. The facility currently handles more than 400 full-scale tests a year.
In addition to the lab’s full-time employees there are a team of 100 silent volunteers – ‘male’ and ‘female’ crash test dummies of varying sizes and ‘ages’. The dummies are advanced measuring instruments with different designs and configurations for different crash situations.