Crumple zones

When a car is involved in an accident a tremendous the body of the car has to deal with a tremendous amount of force. The impact of the crash depends on the speed of the vehicle, the rigidity of the object being crashed into and the speed of the oncoming vehicle in case of a head on collision. Every car has a different design, has different suspension setups, different chassis and has different performance standards. As a result the design of crumple zones have to be different for every car.

Crumple zones disperse the energy of the crash away from the passenger cabin. While it does so where does that energy go? Something has to absorb the force of the impact. The energy is absorbed by the chassis of the car which has crumple zones designed to crumple and break so that the impact of the crash dissipates. The car starts decelerating when the crumple zones start to fold and absorb the force of the impact. Parts of a car are designed with special structures that are designed to crumple and break such as the transmission, suspension, etc just like crumple zones. 

It is easy to incorporate crumple zones in a large car as there is plenty of area other than the passenger compartment that can be built with crumple zones. It’s relatively harder to incorporate crumple zones in small cars as there is less area for incorporating crumple zones.

The Hyundai i20 is the only small car in India with a 5 Star safety rating from Euro NCAP.