A New Concept for Occupant Deceleration Control during Vehicle Crashes -Study of the Vehicle Mass Separation Model

In order to minimize occupant injury in a vehicle collision, an approach was attempted to address this issue by optimizing the waveform of the vehicle body deceleration to reduce the maximum deceleration applied to the occupant. A previous study has shown that the mathematical solution to the optimal vehicle deceleration waveform comprised three stages: high deceleration, negative deceleration, and constant deceleration.

A kinematic model with separated mass of the vehicle was devised to generate the optimal vehicle deceleration waveform comprising three stages including a one with negative deceleration in the middle. The validity of this model has been confirmed by a mathematical study on a one-dimensional lumped mass model. The optimal vehicle deceleration waveform generated by this method was then validated by a three-dimensional dummy simulation.

Apparatus based on the kinematic model consisting of two separate masses was devised to confirm the results obtained from the dummy simulation. An experiment was conducted by utilizing an actual dummy and this apparatus. The experimental results show that the response of the actual dummy closely agrees with that of the three-dimensional simulated dummy.

A simple FE model representing a hollow sheet metal member was devised. The simulation results show the potential of applying the optimal vehicle deceleration waveform.