As part of the vehicle safety research outlined in the March 7, 1995 Settlement Agreement between General Motors and the US Department of Transportation, General Motors is conducting a series of vehicle crash and fire propagation tests. The vehicles used for these tests include a passenger van, a rear wheel drive passenger car, a front wheel drive passenger car and a sport utility vehicle. Crash tests will be conducted to characterize potential ignition sources resulting from collision events. Standard ignition protocols will be developed to simulate gasoline spill fires, electrical fires, and hot-manifold ignition of non-gasoline combustible fluids. Fire propagation tests will be conducted to characterize fire propagation in crashed vehicles. The crash tested vehicles will be burned using the ignition protocols. (A)
Samenvatting