Seeking ways to make better COMPUTER CRASHES

New models and simulations help improve safety as software and hardware provide more realism to iterate designs more quickly.

Although dramatic improvements in models and simulations have made them the primary means for determining the crashworthiness of vehicles, developers are pursuing many avenues to make virtual crashes even more realistic. Algorithms are being tuned to run on multiple processors, adding resolution while shortening the time it takes to full-vehicle simulations.

“As the quality and accuracy of simulation models have increased, the number of repeat tests of actual vehicles has been dramatically reduced and the rate of successful first-time actual tests has increased,” said Eric DeHoff, Principal Engineer/CAE Technical Leader for Vehicle Structures Research at Honda.