SkyTran - Enhanced Safety
The same day, Len Stobar made a brilliant observation. No longer were acceleration and deceleration with this mini MagLev vehicle limited by the traction coefficient of friction between tires and asphalt. This had tremendous safety implications. How many people in cars have died over the past decades because no matter how hard they hit their brakes in an emergency they still ended up obeying the laws of friction physics and slid far too hard into other objects? Our subsequent research showed that properly belted in humans could easily take 6-g decelerations. In fact, for years, people at amusement parks were happy to pay to be subjected to 6 to 8-g's for their enjoyment! 6-g's became our advertised standard.This meant that in an emergency our vehicle could decelerate from 100 mph to 0 mph in a mere 56 feet in just .76 second, whereas the typical car would take 668 feet and 9.1 seconds to stop from the same speed. Big trains were a joke because they limited deceleration levels to 1/8th g on purpose because they had passengers walking around in the aisles to consider. Apparently, people outside walking or in cars that inadvertently found themselves in the way of a train were not a design consideration. The typical train would take 2,670 feet and 36.4 seconds to stop from 100 mph. Our mini vehicles had no room for aisles - end of problem.
DECELERATION LEVEL IN g's
VEHICLE TYPE
CONDITION
DISTANCE TO A COMPLETE STOP FROM 100 MPH
TIME TO STOP FROM 100 MPH
.125 g
(1/8th g)TRAINS
People Standing in Aisles
2,670 feet
(1/2 mile!)36.4 seconds
0.4 g's
CARS
Normal Hard Braking
835 feet
11.4 seconds
0.7 g's
"
Skilled Hard Braking
477 feet
6.50 seconds
1.0 g's
"
Clean Dry Road, Best Tires
333 feet
4.55 seconds
6.0 g's *
SkyTran
Grips Track
55.6 feet
.759 seconds
15.0 g's
ZERO INJURY SAFETY THRESHOLDS**
Seatbelt Only
22.2 feet
.303 seconds
25.0 g's
"
Full Torso restraint
13.3 feet
.182 seconds
60.0 g's
"
Air Bag + Full Torso Restraint
5.5 feet
.075 seconds
* It is important to point out that NASA data shows the limits for humans to sustained 6-g decelerations (eyeballs out direction) is 4 minutes (240 seconds) for performance and 5 minutes (300 seconds) under emergency conditions. The extremely rare SkyTran 6-g emergency deceleration from 100 MPH is all over in less than 1 second!
** J. Irving, "Fundamentals of Personal Rapid Transit", D.C.Heath Co., 1978, p. 189.Fig. 7. Comparative safety and emergency stop data.
