New UK crash-test facility aims to boost development of safer vehicles

A new UK site designed to crash-test cars as a way of furthering vehicle safety has opened its doors.

The Horiba Mira Passive Safety Centre Crash Facility in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, has undergone extensive development to create a new site capable of testing frontal car-to-car impacts, becoming the first in in the UK to offer these tests. Frontal crashes are responsible for more vehicle deaths than any other type of collision, according to Euro NCAP testing data.

It’s why the Passive Safety Centre Crash Facility has been opened with funding coming from both Horiba Mira and West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) funding partners, Frontier Development Capital.

Roisin Hopkins, Horiba Mira’s chief commercial officer, said: “Opening our Passive Safety Centre Crash Facility not only allows the UK to make an even bigger contribution to the push to reduce serious and fatal injuries on the roads, but it also means we can provide a one-stop automotive safety test engineering solution to customers from across the world.”

The facility benefits from a 170-metre runway, which is the distance required to test car-to-car mobile progressive deformable barrier collisions – another first for the UK.

The site also has high-speed cameras installed to capture video of each test, along with the UK’s only THOR anthropomorphic test device, an advanced crash-test dummy capable of assessing, in detail, whole-body trauma.

Graeme Stewart, Horiba Mira’s chief technical officer, said: “Opening our new Crash Facility is a landmark moment, allowing us to support all legislative and consumer standards, as well as to conduct the important vehicle development work that will support the global automotive industry’s bid to design safer vehicles.”

During a crash test, both the car involved and a trolly powered towards each other at 31mph, creating a combined impact speed of 62mph.

Colin Smith, Horiba Mira’s head of crash, explained. “The combined closing speed of both vehicles is the significant factor in this type of accident and is the reason the current Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) data is so high.”