Restitution Modeling for Crush Analysis: Theory and Validation

This paper describes, demonstrates and validates a method for incorporating the effects of restitution into crush analysis. The paper first defines the impact coefficient of restitution in a manner consistent with the assumptions of crush analysis. Second, modified equations of crush analysis are presented that incorporate this coefficient of restitution. Next, the paper develops equations that model restitution response on a vehicle-specific basis. These equations utilize physically meaningful empirical constants and thus improve on restitution modeling equations already in the literature of accident reconstruction. Finally, the paper presents analysis of four vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests, demonstrating that the application of the restitution model derived in this paper results in crush analysis yielding more accurate ΔV calculations.