The Development of a Vehicle Angled Side Collision Computer Simulation Program

A computer simulation program (Ansimsim2) has been developed which is able to simulate the dynamics of an impacted vehicle in an angled side collision, i.e. to predict the rigid body motions and side structural deformations of the struck vehicle.

It is a ‘mass-spring’ model of the impacting vehicle front end and impacted side structure interaction. Only the side structure stiffness characteristics of the impacted vehicle is taken into account as it's mass relative to the whole vehicle mass is negligible. General equations of motion, tyre and suspension data are used to simulate the rigid body motions of the impacted vehicle. The correlations of test with simulation results have been promising, bearing in mind the complex impact process and small use of computer resources.