🚛 Truck crash design, 'Electro Adhesion,' and Mars supercomputers

A new truck design engineered by researchers in Sweden shows promise in mitigating the deadly severity of car-truck collisions. That is, crash tests revealed how the design reduces passenger car compartment deformations by 30-60 percent.

Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are inherently more dangerous to passenger cars in collisions. Between 14-16 percent of all car occupant fatalities in both the EU and the U.S. involve HGVs, and the occupants of the car are the victims in 90 percent. For more on this design, don’t miss out on today's Must Read.

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🚛 This truck design protects cars in head-on crashes

Large trucks’ geometry, stiffness, and sheer mass drastically increase crash severity compared to car-on-car impacts, even at moderate speeds. Current safety standards assume two modern passenger cars with the highest safety ratings will withstand an 80-kilometer-per-hour collision without fatalities.

Still, the same isn’t true for vehicles striking a truck. The challenge lies in the size and structural rigidity mismatch between trucks and cars. Even at moderate collision speeds, the consequences can devastate those in passenger vehicles.

The Chalmers University of Technology team focused on a critical point – protecting the passenger car’s cabin in a head-on collision. Traditional truck designs don’t allow this, so the research aimed to transform how trucks and cars interact during crashes.

⚡Scientists stick materials with electricity in a shocking discovery

Researchers at the University of Maryland in the U.S. have successfully demonstrated the binding of hard materials using no tape or glue — but electricity.

The team used graphite electrodes and acrylamide gel in their experiment. When five volts (V) were applied, the gel adhered strongly to the positively charged electrode and couldn't be pried away by hand. In fact, an attempt to do so resulted in the gel tearing before it could be disconnected from the electrode.

Interestingly, by simply reversing the polarity of the electrodes, the gel separated from the graphite electrode very easily and then adhered to the other electrode, which was now positively charged. Repeated experiments to test the system involved other metals, gel compositions, animal tissues, and fruits and vegetables.

🚀 NASA uses world’s fastest supercomputer to simulate Mars crew landings

NASA is using state-of-the-art supercomputers to simulate future crew landings on Mars. Since 2019, they've used NASA's FUN3D software on supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). Then, in 2023 they used Frontier, the world’s fastest exascale supercomputer, to simulate a complete test flight.

NASA is investigating the use of retropropulsion rather than parachute landings due to Mars’ thin atmosphere. To date, Mars rover landers have weighed roughly 1 ton. By comparison, a crewed spacecraft with cargo and life support systems could weigh somewhere between 20 to 50 tons. It would also be roughly the size of a two-story house.

While their work is far from finished, the OLCF team believes Frontier is well-positioned to help provide the framework for future Mars colonists.

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