Vehicle crash wall

Abstract

A vehicle crash wall with a series of overlapping metal plates attached to a retaining wall by means of a metal sleeve inserted into a female receiving tube. Located between the metal plates and retaining wall is an impact absorbing material. The metal sleeves, 3, are perpendicularly attached to the metal plates, 1, by inserting them into slip joints, 16, and inserting metal pins, 11, vertically through the top of said metal sleeves and into swivel hinges, 10, located beneath said slip joints. The female receiving tubes, 4, are located inside the middle of the retaining wall, 8, perpendicularly extending approximately half-way behind said retaining wall. Said metal sleeves are vertically supported by rollers arms, 5. Said metal plates are perpendicularly supported by cable hold backs, 6, and horizontally by support cables, 13. The force of the impact is evenly dissipated along the length of metal plates and energy absorbent material. This dramatically reduces the risk of injury to the driver and damage to his vehicle and the wall.

Description

BACKGROUND--FIELD OF INVENTION[0001] This invention relates to a new and innovative vehicle crash wall. It can be used at a racetrack, along dangerous sections of public highways or any location where vehicles operate. It dramatically reduces the risk of serious injury to the driver and damage to the vehicle. A series of metal impact plates are attached to a retaining wall through a novel system of cables, slipjoints and plate stabilizers. The force of the impact is absorbed along the entire series of plates through a combination of filler material, located between the plate and retaining wall, and the unique operation of the plate stabilizers. This drastically reduces the force of the impact and significantly diminishes the damage to the vehicle, driver and metal impact plates. After the impact, the vehicle can continue its course on a parallel axis to the wall thus preventing itself from bouncing back into oncoming traffic and causing further accidents to other vehicles.BACKGROUND...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] The prevalent method for building a crash wall is to construct it out of hard concrete. This reduces the cleanup time but does nothing to absorb the impact of the crash. The vehicle is completely destroyed and the driver is seriously injured. When the driver hits the wall his body remains stationary but his head continues to travel forward at a tremendous speed. This usually causes the separation of the brain stem from the spinal cord and certain death. My invention dramatically reduces the force of the crash impact resulting in minimal damage to the car, wall and driver.

[0008] This is achieved by a novel method of overlapping metal plates which, when struck, dissipate the force along the length of the wall. Instead of one solid wall, my invention is a series of metal walls which work in unison to achieve this effect. They are attached to existing retaining walls by anchoring cables and a unique steel tube. Impact absorbent material, such as rubber tires, are placed between the metal plate and the retaining wall. This significantly reduces the impact force to allow the steel tubes to accomplish their task. When the metal plate is struck, it is uniformly pushed back towards the steel tube. A steel sleeve, attached to the plate, enters the tube and functions like a shock-absorber. The result is a revolutionary crash wall which gives and yields to the force of the impact. Unlike the stationary crash walls of the past, my invention produces a flexible safe crash wall which moves as needed to dissipate any impact.

[0009] Furthermore, my crash wall is virtually indestructible because sufficient crash force is never generated to damage the metal plates. This allows the metal plates to be used for an indefinite period of time. Subsequent drivers can immediately hit the same spot and achieve all of the benefits the first driver encountered. In the past, a crash wall could only protect the first driver who hit the wall. My invention additionally protects all subsequent drivers involved in the crash site.

Problems solved by technology

The prior art contains examples of these concepts but fail to produce the desired result due to the stationary nature of a crash wall.

This results in serious injury to the driver and complete destruction of the vehicle.

Although this construction is very strong, it does nothing to reduce the crash impact to the car and driver, help control the car after the impact or diminish the amount of flying debris.

This puts great stress on the outer structure.

This causes a tremendous amount of pressure to be exerted against the points where the beams connect to the outer wall and sea wall.

Wooden walls could not withstand the tremendous force of the crash.

This resulted in vehicles ripping through their boards, careening into the spectator stands at racing events, total destruction of the vehicle and serious injury to the driver.

Although the crash force is diminished, the resulting crash site is heavily littered with thousands of pieces of the plastic wall and car.

The cleanup takes hours and the wall has to be replaced after each crash.

The flying debris causes other vehicles to wreck and many spectators are injured.

This reduces the cleanup time but does nothing to absorb the impact of the crash.

The vehicle is completely destroyed and the driver is seriously injured.

This usually causes the separation of the brain stem from the spinal cord and certain death.

Furthermore, my crash wall is virtually indestructible because sufficient crash force is never generated to damage the metal plates.

In the past, a crash wall could only protect the first driver who hit the wall.

This results in lower insurance rates for drivers and their vehicles.

This is especially true in the venue of professional racing like NASCAR.TM. where the vehicles are extremely expensive and the insurance rates are very high.

Heretofore, after a vehicle crashed into any type of wall it was bounced back into oncoming traffic resulting in further injury to the car, driver and many other cars and their respective drivers.

Heretofore, the race car would be completely destroyed and the driver severely injured or killed.

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