Computers allow car companies to design a car then simulate how it performs in a crash.
According to Prakash Krish Krishnaswamy, President and CEO of EASI Engineering in Troy, crash simulation is coming into its own. In the real world, engineers only get data from the sensors they attach to the car. And they only get to crash it once. With computer simulation, they can run hundreds of crashes and slice the data any way they want, and can visually see strains and stresses in the structure otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Plus, computer simulation provides non-destructive testing, so engineers don't have to cut their designs apart to see how they performed.