The Crash Analysis of a Passenger Vehicle Under Differing Frontal Crash Conditions

This paper describes a project that is currently being undertaken in the United Kingdom. The project is to investigate the structural response of a passenger vehicle under five conditions of frontal impact:

1. i)
   Full frontal impact (0 degree) into a rigid barrier
2. ii
   Angled impact (30 degree) into a rigid barrier
3. iii)
   40% overlap impact into a rigid barrier
4. iv)
   Full frontal impact (0 degree) into a deformable barrier
5. v)
   40 % overlap impact into a deformable barrier.

The work has two primary aims. Firstly to provide structural engineers with information on the degree of complexity that is required to accurately model the crashworthiness of the vehicle. Secondly to provide information that can be used by legislators when setting future vehicle safety regulations.

The paper concentrates on the crash analysis simulations that are being performed in the non-linear finite element code OASYS DYNA3D. The degree of complexity of the model and assumptions made in order to achieve good correlations with tests are described.

The analytical predictions are presented, correlated with actual crash test results.