Sensitivity of Collision Simulation Results to Initial Assumptions

PC-Crash simulations of staged collisions require dozens of parameters describing vehicle and impact parameters. The Collision Optimizer will vary initial speeds and impact parameters to obtain a best fit to a desired end state, but vehicle parameters are left unchanged. The present paper allows these other parameters to vary in thousands of combinations, re-optimizing the solution in each to find the relationships between the previously fixed parameters and the resulting impact speeds. The results show that tire friction and vehicle inertial properties have the most influence on impact speeds. Other parameters have little influence on the results.