MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. Students and teachers of the Engineering Institute of the North-Caucasus Federal University (NCFU) developed hail protection system for cars designed at most effectively preventing the damage from this frequent weather phenomenon in the region. Young scientists are currently searching for investors, the university’s press service said on Thursday.
“Students and teachers of the Department of technical operation of automobiles at NCFU tasked themselves with increasing the protection of a passenger car from hail. In order to to so, an experimental setup was designed, damage to car body elements was assessed when dropping projectiles of various masses and sizes from different heights. Furthermore, the researchers proposed a protective device, consisting of a pneumoframe, a protective panel attached to it and universal fitting. Those attachments are hollow torus segments that are placed in the wheel arches occupying the entire volume provided when using inflator compressor via a common tubular," the statement reads.
The device already got a patent. In order to demonstrate the operability of the protective design in confornity with the scaled patterns, models of a car and the most quickly assembled protective device were created and the principle of its operation was tested, says the document. "Currently, the efforts of the student design bureau are aimed at manufacturing a natural model of a quick-mounted protective device. Work is underway to create a design for reliable attachment points of the protective device to the car body and evaluate the holding force of the attachment points in working position," the press service said.
In the near future, students will begin to manufacture a prototype and conduct experimental studies of its protective properties. In addition, they will have to find a way to reduce the cost of the protective device and find an investor, the report said.
“There are more than 120,000 vehicles in Stavropol. According to surveys, every tenth car owner wants to buy a protective device, while existing devices are either ineffective against hail or too expensive. Thus, the simple design, good technical and operational properties and relatively low cost of the device which is being developed makes its commercial benefits obvious," professor at the Service of Transport and Technological Machines and Equipment faculty at NCFU Pavel Averichkin was quoted as saying.
Hail inflicts significant damage to a car's body and its paint, while repair costs quite a lot. Thus, in April 2016, following a major hailstorm in Stavropol, the cost of repairing a dent without painting immediately increased from 60 rubles per point to 1,500 rubles. Such unpredictable costs can be reduced by the protective devices available on the market, although they all have their drawbacks. In particular, they are not safely attached to a vehicle when strong winds blow during hail, and it takes quite a while to attach them properly.