Nexus is a single passenger, three-wheeled, highly fuel efficient, lightweight vehicle which was developed with funding by the Canadian Department of Transport, at the University of Saskatchewan. Unlike most safety-oriented vehicles Nexus was designed with high fuel transport efficiency as the primary objective. Nexus was, in addition, developed to comply with the intent of the Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS) for passenger cars. This design orientation has led to a very unique vehicle that tries to combine two attributes that are widely regarded as incompatible: safety and fuel conservation. This paper deals primarily with the design of an unusual feature of Nexus, the nose mounted Crash Attenuation System (CAS). This crash attenuation system is designed to protect the frame of the car and hopefully the passenger from any damage in a frontal collision. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 837684.
Abstract