A computer program written by Livermore, California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory engineers has been used to analyse the Cannon Street train crash in London early last year, in which a train cannoned into the buffers and took the lives of two passengers and injured 542 others, has been studied by Frazer-Nash Consultancy, a mechanical engineering firm based in Leatherhead, for the UK Health & Safety Executive; in the three-month study, Frazer-Nash used a model it developed call Dynaman from DYNA3D, a Livermore program that enables analysis of the interaction of passengers and vehicles involved in impacts; Frazer-Nash engineers ran computer simulations on the effects on three passengers, one standing and two sitting, at two speeds, five miles per hour and 15 miles per hour; one of the key findings was that seated passengers appeared to be no safer than the standing passengers in the 15-mile-per-hour crash; the simulations and other evidence show that the train was moving nearer 15mph than 5mph.
