Development of a Target Vehicle Model for Vehicle-to-Vehicle Simulations: Part I Rigid Barrier Impacts

The objective of this study is to develop a target vehicle model for vehicle-to-vehicle impact applications. In order to provide reasonable predictions for crash pulses in vehicle-to-vehicle impacts, an accurate and robust target vehicle model was developed first. An ideal target vehicle model should be able to provide reasonable results when hit by different bullet vehicles at different impact speeds and under different impact conditions. This was achieved by calibrating the target vehicle model against different vehicle crash tests, which include full rigid barriers, angular rigid barriers, offset rigid barriers, and fixed rigid poles. Twelve rigid barrier tests were adopted in this study to calibrate the target vehicle model. During the calibration process, some of the vehicle structures were examined and remodeled carefully for their properties and mesh quality. Some critical component tests were also designed and performed to understand their characteristics and improve the modeling. The results predicted at the left and right rocker/B-pillars are compared to those of the corresponding tests in this paper. In addition, the deformation modes of critical components predicted from simulations are also discussed.