interesting accident result

JRSutton

Well-known Member
down the road from me, somebody was unloading
these steel beams with a forklift.

A car crashed into him.

The car snapped a telephone pole, got one of these
125lb steel beams through the car - and somehow
sent this one sailing through the air and INTO
this oak tree.

Driver was injured, but not too seriously. Or
should I say not nearly as seriously as he
could have been.
a176600.jpg
 
Here's the car

I guess the injuries were pretty minor - as you can tell from the car.

But that's about as close a shave as I'd ever want to get.
a176601.jpg
 
Always look on the bright side, at least now you can sit there and wait for the mailman...
 
So just why didnt the car slow down he sure could see the road had something there that was parked in the roadway so you hit the brakes to be safe.
 
Just a minute now!!!. I zoomed in on that peice of steel where it is in the tree. It has been imbeded in that tree for quite some time. No freshly broken bark and the bark has grown around it. The post of the mailbox shown no signs of disturbance. Also the steel channed is perfectly straight. Looks like a hoax to me.
Loren. the Acg.
 
Include me in on the skeptic side. What year is that car? Doesn't look old enough for that bark to have healed over to that extent.
 
Its the Mass of the steel, not its velocity that stuck it in the tree like that. 125 lb. of anything does not stop on a dime.

I recall seeing a demonstration once between a 22 cal. bullet and an arrow. Fired both into a coffe can full of sand. The 22 bullet went about 1/2 way through. muzzle velocity was something over 300 fps. The arrow with a much lower velocity plowed all the way through. But it weighed much more than the bullet.

I wonder how fast the car was going?
 
(quoted from post at 22:45:20 12/15/14) Include me in on the skeptic side. What year is that car? Doesn't look old enough for that bark to have healed over to that extent.

That is a freshly impaled tree.
 

I zoomed in till it got blurry and the bark does seem to have a nice square cut. I suppose it's possible. I've never driven a steel beam into a tree sooooooo? Tornadoes do drive some pretty lightweight stuff into trees.
 
No, it's not the mass that matters. Would a 125 lb anvil have embedded in the tree? How about a 125 lb human?

The term you want to use is "sectional density". The mass of a projectile divided by its cross-sectional area. And yes, that beam has a very high sectional density.
 
(quoted from post at 00:38:49 12/16/14) Its the Mass of the steel, not its velocity that stuck it in the tree like that. 125 lb. of anything does not stop on a dime.

I recall seeing a demonstration once between a 22 cal. bullet and an arrow. Fired both into a coffe can full of sand. The 22 bullet went about 1/2 way through. muzzle velocity was something over 300 fps. The arrow with a much lower velocity plowed all the way through. But it weighed much more than the bullet.

I wonder how fast the car was going?

Sectional density is the term you're seeking. Something short and fat has way less SD than something long and thin, both weighing the same. A 150 gr 45 cal bullet has way less SD than a 150gr 264 cal bullet.

ETA, sorry Mark, I didn't see your post.
 
Transfer of momentum. Momentum = mass x velocity

Big 4000lb car moving at high velocity hits small 125lb metal beam.

If the car were to hit the beam at 55MPH and impart all its momentum into the beam, the beam would fly off at 1760MPH!

Granted only a portion of the car's momentum was transferred, but even 10% would send the beam off at 176MPH. That's tornado speed.
 

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