Here’s a quick look at the 2013 Lexus LX body structure and airbags.
10-airbag system, including: Driver’s and front passenger’s advanced airbag system with front passenger’s twin-chamber airbag, Driver’s and front passenger’s knee airbags, Front and rear Roll-Sensing Curtain Airbags (RSCA), Front seat-mounted side airbags, and Rear seat-mounted side airbags.
Below are a couple of pictures of the rear seat belt pretensioners. These pretensioners are located in the base of the C-Pillar.
The body structure of the 2013 Porsche Cayman is now predominantly aluminium, with the rest fashioned from a combination of magnesium and hot formed high-strength steel.
The Cayman is equipped as standard with full-size and knee airbags, which are inflated in two stages depending on the severity and type of accident (e. g. frontal or offset frontal). In less serious accidents, the airbags are only partially inflated, thereby minimizing discomfort to the occupants. So that should to tell you right away that these are dual-stage airbags.
Take a quick look at the 2013 Porsche Cayenne Body Structure. Notice what appears to be a box where the driver’s seat would be installed? That is the battery box for the 12V battery. Just like the VW Touareg. The screenshot from Moditech’s Crash Recovery System (CRS) clearly shows the 12V battery underneath the driver seat.
Quick look at the 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee Body Structure. The Grand Cherokee has an extensive use of high-strength and ultra-high-strength steel in the body structure.
In yesterday’s webcast, Hidden Hazards inside a Vehicle I discussed how useful Moditech’s Crash Recovery System (CRS for short) on the scene of an extrication. I used the screenshot from CRS of the Chrysler 200 to show the battery location in the front fender on the driver side. However, the folks at Moditech took it a step further in CRS by providing instructions and pictures outline the 12V battery disconnection. Follow the pictures below and see how useful this piece of software is.
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Now I’m sure we are never going to look like the guy in the picture on the left. Lets hope not! (Sorry Hazmat guys, I’m only an ops guy myself) However, the picture brings up an interesting question, what’s a quick way to pull a victim away from a shock hazard that is caused by an EV or Hybrid? An insulated hook? Forget about all the safety systems on these vehicles that automatically disconnect the HV and the view that you would never use a tool like this. I agree with that 99.9%. Yet, when we arrive on scene there is no telling what we are going to run into.
So take a look at the Hybrid Hook by Fire Hooks Unlimited. The Hybrid Hook is made to remove persons grounded to Hybrid battery’s with as much as 600 volts DC. This insulated hook protects at a ratio of 25,000 volts per inch of fiberglass because of it’s unique design. I sent an email to Fire Hooks Unlimited asking for a little more info so stay tuned.
I have seen Insulated Rescue Hooks like the one below in High Voltage (HV) labs in the auto industry that test HV batteries and cables.
Just in case you were wondering just how safe the propane tanks used in cars, trucks, and bus the folks at Blue Bird posted a video where the Roush AutoGas tank is tested.
I didn’t want to leave too many people out of the mix tonight, so here is a look at the 2013 Nissan Navara Body Structure for our readers down under in Australia.
Here is one for the extrication folks in Italy. Ecco uno per la gente estricazione in Italia. The 2012 Opel Astra GTC Safety and Body Structure.
No Emergency Response Guides (ERG) have been released for the 2012 Porsche Panamera S Hybrid. In the mean time, just use the images below to get a brief overview of the HV cables and battery locations.
Here is a quick look at a future Porsche, the Panamera Sport Turismo Hybrid. Porsche is now giving their plug-in hybrids the designation “e-hybrid.” This concept is a parallel hybrid, which means that the wheels can be driven by the electric motors, the gas engine, or both at the same time. When working together, the car produces 416 horsepower, enough to make it accelerate to 60 in under six seconds. So look for this one on the road soon.
Check out the Fisker Karma Body Structure and Battery location. You can find a bunch of useful information in the Fisker Automotive Emergency Response Guide and take a quick look at the Rescue Card below.
Sixteen battery-powered Fisker Karma automobiles self-combusted in New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy, apparently in an attempt to generate heat to warm up the electricity-less victims of the town of Port Newark, New Jersey. Surprised? The salt water storm surge got into the batteries.
Also take note of the gear shifter that is a push button style located on the center console.
You all know I love Moditech’s Crash Recovery System (CRS) and I say their Facebook page is a must follow! Here’s a great example of why. The guys at Moditech posted the image below on their Facebook post and asked their readers this question; “Rescuers, what do you notice on the screenshot of this Ford F150?” So what did you notice? Many people responded with the usually hazards that CRS clearly locates in the diagraphs. However, Moditech wanted to highlight the location of the stored gas inflator in the B-Post. So you instructors out there, if you have ever told your students that they have never encountered a stored gas inflator in a vehicles B-post. That may not always true as you can see on our screenshot. Also peel the trim away!
Here’s a question for you, do know what “acoustic side windows” really means? If your a regular reader of the blog, you should quickly translate acoustic front windscreen and optional acoustic side windows made with multilayer glass technology to provide great noise insulation to laminated side glass. The image of the 2013 Mercedes-Benz GL below id from the Rescue card for passenger cars. Where’s the battery? How many batteries do you see? See both of them? labeled 1 and 2. Also take note of the suggested cut points. Mercedes-Benz provides extrication cut points that are away from airbag inflators and often are a place on the vehicle where the body structure is weaker.
Guidelines for rescue services are available in various languages as downloadable PDF files. Mercedes-Benz updates the guides below so the information in it is current to assist rescuers during an extrication. Here’s a great company drill or something to read through with your crew.
Here’s a quick look at the the 2012 Mercedes-Benz E-Class body structure and safety features. Three of the 4 models (Coupe, Cabriolet, and Sedan) are covered in the information below. The body structure and airbag location for the wagon model can be found on an earlier post here. Take a quick look, especially at the airbag locations and the inflators.
The roof frame structure and the A-pillars are also built to be particularly stable. The A-pillars have been reinforced with tubing. The roof frame structure and the A-pillars are also built to be particularly stable. The A-pillars have been reinforced with tubing, offering effective occupant protection together with the roll-over bars in case of an overturn. The roll-over bars’ cassettes are fully integrated in the head restraints on the rear seats and fastened to the area behind the rear seat backrest in the body shell. They can be extended in fractions of a second as soon as the airbag control system’s crash sensors detect the risk of an accident.
Below are the airbag and inflators locations on the 2012 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan. Nine air bags that include; pelvic air bags complement side-impact air bags for each front seat. A driver´s knee air bag augments dual-stage front air bags. Side curtain air bags are provided at the outboard seating positions in both the first and second rows.
We train for motor vehicle accidents with entrapment but do you train for extrications that involve an object other than another car? A vehicle resting against a utility pole or wrapped around it is a common scenario that we could ran into on a MVA. However, a tree that fell onto a vehicle that was uprooted by the wind in uncommon for most of us, but that is what happened in Wilmette Illinois today. A family of six was traveling on Wilmette Avenue at 10:55 a.m. when a wind gust blew a large tree onto their Ford Freestyle. Two occupants were taken to the hospital for minor injuries.
Take a look at the picture below taken by Tim Olk. The Wilmette Fire Department stabilized the tree with cribbing and then extricated the driver.
Here’s the question, what would you do? What and how would you stabilize? Would you have a safety officer monitoring the tree during the extrication? Let’s use this incident to get everyone’s mind thinking. It’s an outside of the box call, but possible in any part of the world for the most part.
Photo courtesy of Tim Olk
Photo courtesy of Tim Olk
Photo courtesy of Tim Olk
Photo courtesy of Tim Olk
Photo courtesy of Tim Olk
Photo courtesy of Tim Olk
A special thanks to Tim Olk for the use of the pictures in this post. Olk isthe Region Director For ( Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana ) And The State Coordinator (Illinois) for the International Fire Photographers Association. He has been taking pictures at fire scenes for close to 30 years in Northern Illinois And Chicago. Check out more of Olk’s photos here.
The 2013 Ford Fusion uses hydroformed steel tubes for its B-pillars and a hydroformed A-pillar roof rail. So why is this important to us? Using hydroforming instead of hot-stamped welded sheet to create the car’s roof-pillar structure reduced mass, saved cost, reduced the bill of material (which is the number of parts welded together to make the B-pillar), and helped improve the new Fusion’s crash performance. The hydroformed steel tubes replaced hot-stamped parts. B-pillars are a common place to find hot-stamped boron and the hydroformed steel tubes are replacing it in the 2013 Fusion.
Take a close look at the two images below of the body structure of the previous design and the new hydroformed design. Notice that the previous design used boron steel and the new hydroformed design does not. I’m going to try to work some magic and see if I can get my hands on a 2013 Fusion but since it is new it might take a little time before showing up in scrap yards.
So just in case you thought that Crash Recovery System by Moditech only helps you avoid hazards in vehicles like ultra high strength steels and airbag inflators take a look at the deactivation procedure for the 2009-2012 Tesla Roadster and the 2008-2009 Tesla Roadster. One very important point, the Tesla Roadster has an inertia switch, that when activated, cuts off the high voltage circuit. This deactivation procedure is for the SRS (Supplemental Restraint System) ie, airbags.
During a collision an inertia switch is activated, which cuts off the high voltage circuit.
Immobilize vehicle:
Deactivate propulsion system:
The emergency disconnect cable should be used as part of the propulsion system deactivation. Is located in the vehicle as indicated. – Cut the indicated cable in the image below. There is a difference between the location of the Emergency Disconnect Cable in the 2008-2009 Tesla Roadster and the 2009-2012 Tesla Roadster. Make sure you become familiar with both!
Below is the location of the Emergency Disconnect Cable on the 2009-2012 Tesla Roadster which is located in the front of the vehicle.
The Emergency Disconnect Cable on the 2009-2012 Tesla Roadster is located in front of the windshield on the driver side under the hood.
Below is the location of the Emergency Disconnect Cable on the 2008-2009 Tesla Roadster which is located in the rear of the vehicle.
The Emergency Disconnect Cable on the 2008-2009 Tesla Roadster is located in the rear of the vehicle behind the passenger in the trunk.
Just because thee A-pillars are thinner on the 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek doesn’t mean there is not any high-strength steel lurking inside. The XV Crosstrek is expected to score a maximum five stars from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and earn a “Top Safety Pick” from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
The 2013 XV Crosstrek features Subaru’s Advanced Frontal Airbag System. This is important because the intelligent air bag system employs dual-stage-deployment driver and front passenger airbags. A seat position sensor on the driver’s seat track detects if the driver is sitting too close to the airbag, in which case the system would delay deployment of the airbag’s second stage. The passenger side front seat incorporates an occupant detection module that detects seat occupancy and passenger weight to control airbag deployment.
Electrically triggered pre-tensioners and force limiters are located in the front 3-point seatbelts. The seatbelt mechanism also absorbs energy through internal deformation.
The 2012 Dodge Challenger is available in three models and rides on a shortened version of the Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 platform. One important note is the the Challenger is from four-door architecture on the L-platform which was shortened to a two-door. Keep in mind that the C-Pillar of this vehicle is very large and has the roof curtain airbag inflators located in the C-Pillar as seen in the screenshot below from Moditech’s Crash Recovery System (CRS).
Is safety at the scrap yard and at extrication training a priority? Here is one reason to drill and drive home to peel away the trim and look for airbag inflators even on old cars in the scrap yard. Yesterday a 2001 Volvo S40 was included in the vehicles at the local scrap yard for the man behind FirtDueTackle.com and me. When I looked inside the driver door the was a small door in the trim at the top of the B-Pillar. The door had a marking cooling out a roof airbag. I pulled out Moditech’s Crash Recovery System and looked up the vehicle and sure enough there is a roof airbag with the inflator located in the middle of the C-Pillar. It was easy to assume that that a 11 year old vehicle wouldn’t have inflators in the pillars, but that is a dangerous assumption.
Below is a screen shot from Moditech’s Crash Recovery System (CRS) for the 2012 Honda CR-V. The standard safety features in the CR-V inlcude a body structure that enhances occupant protection and crash compatibility in frontal collisions. Safety feature include automatic tensioning front seat belts, side curtain airbags with rollover sensor and dual-stage, multiple-threshold front airbags (SRS).
The body structure of the 2012 Honda CR-V Body Structure is shown is several images below.
The ratings that the 2012 Honda CR-V received should also give you a little insight into the body structure and safety features.
UPS operates alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Brazil, the UK and Hong Kong. Eight different alternative fuel options are used by UPS; compressed natural Gas, propane, hybrid-electric vehicles, all-electric vehicles, LNG, ethanol-powered delivery vehicles (in Brazil), and liquefied petroleum (in Korea).
UPS has always been a leader in developing and deploying alternative fuel vehicles. The LNG tractors currently make a round trip from LA to Las Vegas and with a new LNG fueling station in Salt Lake City look for my trucks on the roads.
Since UPS started tracking miles driven by its AFV in 2000, the company’s “green fleet” has logged over 200 million miles. That’s the equivalent of nearly three round trips to Mars or circling the Earth more than 8,600 times. UPS estimates that its AFV (1,900+ and growing) will drive the next 200 million miles by 2017. Read on for more on five innovative technologies that have helped UPS hit this exciting milestone.
How does the HHV work?
UPS deployed 45 ethanol-powered delivery vehicles in Brazil.
Below are pictures of a test truck for the ROUSH CleanTech liquid propane autogas fuel system. The truck is a Ford E-350 or E-450 dual rear wheel cutaway vehicle. I snapped these pictures after a quick mountain bike ride at on of the local trails outside of Detroit. No remember, this is not a production vehicle, but parts of this system are on the road today.
Check out the body structure and safety features in the 2012 Jeep Patriot.
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