Location of Incident: 10 mins before Castle Mountain junction driving to Calgary on Highway 93 Northbound
While driving there was a sudden and very loud explosion that was instantaneous and without warning. The sun roof shade cover was closed at the time and after the explosion we could hear the wind rushing over what we later discovered was a large, fairly uniform, rectangular hole almost exactly in the center of the sunroof. Pictures of the exploded roof clearly show that the roof blew out from inside to outside. This was a very frightening situation and I can't imagine what might have happened if the sun roof cover had not been closed at the time.
I think this has to be looked at as a fundamental design problem. A certain combination of glass properties, temperature differential between outside and inside the vehicle, along with a possible differential pressure between the outside and the inside of the vehicle are variables to look at. The other possible variables to consider are related to the way the glass is fit to the sun roof frame and the compression forces that may come into play in an in-elastic final assembly of the sunroof component.
My brief reviews of the very considerable amount of information posted on the internet would lead me to believe this is a problem for many of the automobile companies. I have not reviewed this matter from an injury point of view but I would believe this must be a major concern for possible liabilities. I can see how an explosion of this type could lead to injury and possible loss of vehicle control due to the sudden explosive noise and glass shower of glass fragments.
Road Conditions: Clear
Temperature: -10 degrees C
Speed of Vehicle: 90 km per hour
Sunroof Position: Closed
Sunroof Sun Shade Cover: Closed
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Description of Incident:
Location of Incident: 10 mins before Castle Mountain junction driving to Calgary on Highway 93 Northbound
While driving there was a sudden and very loud explosion that was instantaneous and without warning. The sun roof shade cover was closed at the time and after the explosion we could hear the wind rushing over what we later discovered was a large, fairly uniform, rectangular hole almost exactly in the center of the sunroof. Pictures of the exploded roof clearly show that the roof blew out from inside to outside. This was a very frightening situation and I can't imagine what might have happened if the sun roof cover had not been closed at the time.
I think this has to be looked at as a fundamental design problem. A certain combination of glass properties, temperature differential between outside and inside the vehicle, along with a possible differential pressure between the outside and the inside of the vehicle are variables to look at. The other possible variables to consider are related to the way the glass is fit to the sun roof frame and the compression forces that may come into play in an in-elastic final assembly of the sunroof component.
My brief reviews of the very considerable amount of information posted on the internet would lead me to believe this is a problem for many of the automobile companies. I have not reviewed this matter from an injury point of view but I would believe this must be a major concern for possible liabilities. I can see how an explosion of this type could lead to injury and possible loss of vehicle control due to the sudden explosive noise and glass shower of glass fragments.
Road Conditions: Clear Temperature: -10 degrees C Speed of Vehicle: 90 km per hour Sunroof Position: Closed Sunroof Sun Shade Cover: Closed
- gep, Calgary, Alberta, canada