Missile test videos impact funny bone

by Jonathan McGaha | 16 April 2014 12:00 am

If you laughed when David Letterman dropped bowling balls on a waterbed and a frozen turkey on a trampoline[1] from the top of a five-story tower, you might also find missile impact test videos entertaining.

The Airolite Co. LLC released a video about new code requirements for large missile impact tests[2] for building louvers, which we’ll publish information about in the May issues of Metal Architecture[3] and Metal Construction News[4]. Depending on the type of building and location, the louvers are required to withstand a 9 pound 2-by-4 slamming into them at 34 mph or a 9 pound 2-by-4 impacting at 55 mph.

A couple YouTube searches for “large missile test” and “large missile impact test” turn up a bevy of well-staged videos of brick and metal walls, glass and other materials being struck with shooting timbers. In this 16-second example[5], a guy is heard exclaiming off-screen, “Taw, baby!” I thought the same thing as I paged through some of these.

Many of the missile impact test videos begin like this one from Bristolite Daylighting Systems[6] with a still shot of the material being tested followed by a large 2-by-4 hurtling at it from off-screen. Watching these cracked me up.

Like this one of ClearShield’s double sliding door suite[7] being blasted with accelerating lumber and this one in which the StormShear[8] faces the flying wood. This video for BASF[9] shows the machine that shoots the 2-by-4s being loaded and this one of a United Enertech product[10] shows 15-pound 2-by-4s splintering into a metal grate at 100 mph. Do it again. Do it again. Can you make that thing go faster?

If you find another good missile impact test video, please paste a link in the comments below so everyone can have a look.

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/blog/missile-test-videos-impact-funny-bone/

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