Auto Parts: Information Request, stress fractures, porter high school

Question
Dear Steve Myers,
  Today we are contacting you in regards to our engineering Design and Development project. We are two senior students from Porter High School of Technology. My name is Fred Board and my partners name is Jessica Chapa.
Our school of technology is concerned for our future, which is why they are helping us get some experience in the engineering field. Our project is concerning safety with Car Doors.
This letter was created to request your help for our car door safety project. We are doing this project for we conducted a survey and the results were that people are concern with car door injuries. We ask for your support and with any information you can provide us with we would be thankful to you. Our main questions would be about the typical door assemblies and if there is any room for a modification or space for a sensor of some sort.

1.   Would an addition of a sensor to a car door require complex wiring or a simple setup of a power source?
2.   Is there such an apparatus that will stop a slamming car door without creating stress fractures or damage to the door?
3.   Would it be possible to include a pneumatic or hydraulic stopper to a car door hinge?

We appreciate your time. We will surely thank you for any help you can provide us with and in case you can’t we are grateful for the time you took to read this letter.


Sincerely,

Fred Board
Jessica Chapa


Answer
all of your ideas sound plausible. for your best research material i would start by looking at the mechanics of the power sliding doors on the newer mini-vans. the have all of the safety and convenience features i believe you are looking for. one thing to remeber is that a door doesn't have to swing out from the car!  it could open upwards similar to a gull wing style or even slide forward over the front fender. the best designs never follow the standard practice. try solving to problems at once by creating a safe door that saves opening clearance. good luck. glad to talk to the future engineers.