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Roadside furniture (power poles, light poles, guard rails, etc.) is dangerous.
Sure, designs are getting better, but your chances of surviving a solid hit, in a passenger vehicle, on a 15in diameter wooden pole, at 100kmh, are about nil.
Making them out of high density foam, with a harder
rubber shell, would make them a lot safer. They would also be very good insulators. Energy absorbent, not bouncy.
I saw a family car wrapped around a pole today... single occupant. The rescue crew weren't hurrying, if you understand what I mean.
Forgiving Roadsides
http://www.etsc.be/bri_road5.pdf
Discussion of current approaches to impact-friendly street furniture [oneoffdave, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Queensland's Breakaway signs
http://www.mainroad...2069ce?OpenDocument
Nice technical drawings of breakaway sign construction. [oneoffdave]
Magnetorheological Custard as a fluid damper
http://www.mrfluid.com/pdf/prop5.pdf
About halfway down. Okay, I cheated a little but, hey... [oneoffdave, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Magnetorheological Custard as a fluid damper
http://www.mrfluid.com/pdf/prop5.pdf
About halfway down. Okay, I cheated a little but, hey... [Tiger Lily, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
The Cult of the Magical Thixotropic Custard
http://www.samuri.co.uk/custard/
Cult reveals the true nature of "custard's" fluid properties. What will YOU believe? [Tiger Lily, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
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Is there some way that these hi density foam poles with a
hard rubber shell could be applied to pants? |
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Except a rubber lamppost would twang you back into the road and possibly into oncoming traffic so you would involve more vehicles in the crash than there would have originally been. |
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People's perception of danger would be reduced causing them to drive more dangerously in compensation. |
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I imagine it’s somewhat traumatic to see something like that. |
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The material doesn’t need to be bouncy so much as energy absorbing, such as the big barrels full of water that you see at the end of guard rail where the exit ramp splits off. Maybe a ring-shaped water barrel that fits around the pole would do the trick. |
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A while back they experimented with poles that would shear off on impact by being fixed to the mounting plate with breakaway bolts. I never heard any more of the project. |
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I think the big trouble is with the mass of the poles. Breakaway, bend, crush, you still have to change the velocity of something with a lot of momentum. I would think that a foam-filled pole with a hard shell that could shatter on impact may be a good solution. It would be just as rigid to hold the power lines even in a strong wind, yet have very little mass (and therefore momentum) so would cause less damage. |
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What you need is reverse custard, all solid until hit. Then it turns into a soft, impact absorbing jelly. |
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Nice, but would they support the weight of the wires? |
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Energy absorbent was more the sort of thing that I was thinking. That would preclude the possibility of bouncing back into the path of traffic, I should think. |
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Shear-off poles are quite common here, for lighting on median strips. Shearable timber poles wouldn't work. |
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Perhaps the energy absorbent qualities of custard could be utilised. Anyone know what the thixotropic equivalent of custard might be? |
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Tomato paste? Ketchup is thixotropic, don't know if tomato has anything to do with it though. A tomato based product might make it tough to immediately determine whether or not there were any actual injuries. |
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[UB] It will take some R&D, but I believe egg-nog could be developed for this purpose. It should be the European kind like Advocaat. Just grain alcohol, sugar, cream, egg-yolks. It is like pudding and becomes liquid when shaken. Around schools a version of Ketchup could be used to protect innocent kids against accidental exposure to alcohol. The Ketchup should be made from green tomatoes to avoid any similarity with pools of blood (risk of nightmares). |
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Any volunteers or sponsors for egg-nog R&D? |
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