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Old 07-01-2010, 05:08 PM
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Peter Ward
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Peter Ward is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Quote:
Originally Posted by glenc View Post
Peter, I am assuming the stopping distance (amount of crumpling) for the truck is 0.1m and the stopping distance (amount of crumpling) for the car is 0.5m. The truck would probably crumple less than that and the car might crumple more. You didn't allow for this.
Kinetic energy is the same in both cases.

40 ton truck @ 100km/hr has 200,000 "units" (sorry couldn't be bothered converting to joules) of energy.

A 2 ton car needs a velocity equivalent to the square root of that....447km/hr. How much the car or truck crumples does not change the initial KE.
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