New, UK-first car crash test centre to run 70mph, head-on crashes with £500k dummies  

The UK’s first-ever frontal car-to-car impact crash test lab has just opened its doors in Nuneaton, Warwickshire as part of a £4.1 million investment at the Horiba Mira test centre.

No doubt the highlight of Mira’s Passive Safety Centre Crash Facility is the 170-metre long track that, along with a 1,600bhp winch, can catapult cars at speeds of up to 70mph in controlled crash tests.

The investment, which includes new lighting and camera technology to accurately photograph each test for analysis, has put the test centre in line for Euro NCAP accreditation by November this year, meaning UK manufacturers will soon be able to test their cars to the latest safety standards without having to send their vehicles abroad.

Key to this accreditation is the aforementioned track, which is an extension of the 85 metres already present and required the construction of a giant new building to house it all. Such a long track enables Mira to perform Euro NCAP’s latest MPDB (Mobile Progressive Deformable Barrier) test, which involves a test car and deformable barrier being fired into each other, both travelling at 50kph to understand how the car in question’s front impact structure distributes the huge amount of force present in an accident.

In these tests, Mira hooks up a multitude of sensors to measure all the different forces impacting on the car which, along with the photographs and damage to the deformable barrier, can be compiled to provide a safety score.

Horiba Mira has also invested in the latest THOR 50 crash test dummy; so futuristic it hasn’t be standardised yet as part of Euro NCAP’s tests, each of these units costs well over half a million pounds each and contains more sensors than the average crash test dummy – primarily around the chest, pelvis and vital organs – to measure the load put on the human body during an impact.

Graeme Stewart is Mira’s Chief Technical Officer; he explained how “the UK has never had this level of passive testing capability before.”

“Opening our new Crash Facility is a landmark moment, allowing us to support all legislative and consumer standards,” he continued, “as well as to conduct the important vehicle development work that will support the global automotive industry’s bid to design safer vehicles.”

Auto Express also spoke to Matthew Avery: the Director for Strategic Development at Euro NCAP. He explained how the organisation was founded in the UK back in the nineties as a project funded by the Department for Transport.

“It’s great that, for the first time ever in the UK, we’ve got a facility that can perform the most exacting test Euro NCAP has ever undertaken,” he said. “Everyone has an obligation to be driving as safe a vehicle as they possibly can – bear in mind that vehicles don’t only protect themselves in a crash but also other road users. The tests Mira undertakes here very much surround that.”

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