- by Brian Byrne
New bonnet construction softens pedestrian impact
02 April 2003: Mazda researchers have come up with a new design of aluminium car bonnet (hood) which is aimed at significantly reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths in road traffic accidents.
The 'Shock Cone Aluminum Hood' will be used on the Mazda RX-8 due to appear in showrooms this spring, and will be gradually incorporated into other Mazda products.
Framed hoods, which are conventionally used for vehicles, have an inner panel with a bone structure to act as reinforcement. For pedestrian protection, safety engineers traditionally control impact absorption by adjusting the way the bone structure crumples. However, the framed inner panel inevitably leaves some hard points that may not fully absorb the forces of an impact.
Instead of a framed structure, the "Shock Cone Aluminum Hood" on the RX-8 has an inner panel that is uniquely shaped with numerous craters, similar to cones. The structure with these craters, called "shock cone," yields effective impact absorption across the entire surface of the hood. This is the first time that this structure has been applied to hoods with the aim of enhancing impact absorption to improve pedestrian protection.
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