[Shop-talk] Nova - PBS show

[Donald H Locker]

The good thing about new designs is that the vehicle dissipates and redirects 
all the energy and the occupants walk away.

I do know that carbon fiber is a very strong fiber and with proper adhesives can 
be formed into very strong and light structural panels.  But proper design of a 
vehicle today requires that the vehicle sacrifice itself.

I think most insurance companies would rather replace a $250,000 car than pay 
the millions it takes to keep a human vegetable alive until the lawyers have 
finished their feeding frenzy.  Of course, they'd really rather not pay 
anything, so your rates will probably go up and you'll never collect anyway.

Donald.

John T. Blair wrote:
> Speaking of that show, anyone know much about carbon fiber?
> 
> There was a company in CO that was designing a very strong light
> car with something like 14 body panels that were to be glued together.
> They are using carbon fiber for the panels.
> 
> There was a movie out, within the last year or so, that feature the private
> collection of the film maker.  They were all exotics.  After the movie was
> finished, as some sort of a promotion for it, they sponcered something like
> an autocross.  One of the actors in the movie was driving a Ferrari owned
> by the file maker.  Coming into a turn, the driver looses it and hits a jersey
> wall.  It didn't look like too bad a crash and if it had been a regular car, it
> looked like it should have been repairable.  But they said it totaled the
> Ferarri - supposedly a $1,000,000 car!
> 
> My understand was that the car was carbon fiber, and the shock of the
> impact was transfered through the body and trashed most of the strucutral
> pats of the car.
> 
> Now my question is this:  Is this correct?  If so, I don't see carbon fiber as
> a material for the main body/structural components of a car.  This would
> mean that most wrecks were then totals for ther cars.  This should make
> insurance go through the ceiling, as if they aren't high enough already.
> 
> John