Volute Spring Bumper System

There are numerous engineering solutions to the energy management problem in low-speed vehicle bumper impact situations. This paper covers a North American Rockwell volute spring energy storage assembly. Selection of a system involves price, performance, installation, weatherability, reliability, etc. Extensive tests-pendulum corner impact, barrier, and pendulum-were carried out and showed that the volute spring assembly on a test vehicle withstood more than 100 impacts without evidence of failure.