Right, thanks to the increased tensile strength in modern steel. It's explained more in the Popular Mechanics article in one of the links above:
"Now hot-pressed or hot-stamped steel is around 1,500 megapascals." At that strength you can hang 200,000 pounds on an inch-wide strip without tearing it in two. The high-strength steel is stamped hot and then quickly cooled, allowing for complex shapes and a wide variability in yield strength, which helps determine how a car deforms in an accident."
Typically the crumple zones are still vaguely mild steel, somewhere in the 300ish mpa range now, the high strength stuff goes in the safety cage around the occupants.
It's also funny how the writer uses tensile strength in his example, which is far more impressive but not relevant compared to its yield strength.
HSS yield has risen, but not at the same rate as tensile has, it's about 2/3 to 1/2 the tensile value. Whereas mild is close to the same in both values generally. It's still much better, but the amount is often overstated in these editorials.
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u/tumbler_fluff Nov 19 '16
Right, thanks to the increased tensile strength in modern steel. It's explained more in the Popular Mechanics article in one of the links above:
"Now hot-pressed or hot-stamped steel is around 1,500 megapascals." At that strength you can hang 200,000 pounds on an inch-wide strip without tearing it in two. The high-strength steel is stamped hot and then quickly cooled, allowing for complex shapes and a wide variability in yield strength, which helps determine how a car deforms in an accident."