Computational Methodologies for Vehicles Roof Strength Assessment to Prevent Occupants Injury in Rollover Crashes

Among all types of vehicle crashes, rollover is the most complex and yet least understood. During the last decades, a constant increase in the studies involving rollover crashes and injuries associated with it can be observed. Although the rollover is not the most frequent type of accident, it is of the greatest significance with respect to injury and trauma caused to the vehicle occupants.

The existing standards and procedures to test rollover crashworthiness are still not suitable to computer simulation because of the huge computational effort required, and the need of faithful/overly complex representation of the aspects involved in real crashes.

The objective of the present work is the development of computational models particularly adapted to simulate different standards and procedures used to evaluate the vehicles' roof strength. The models are compared with other approaches, and their advantages/disadvantages are discussed.