Crash Test Pulses for Advanced Batteries

This paper reports a 2010 study undertaken to determine generic acceleration pulses for testing and evaluating advanced batteries for application in electric passenger vehicles. These were based on characterizing vehicle acceleration time histories from standard laboratory vehicle crash tests. Crash tested passenger vehicles in the United States vehicle fleet of the model years 2005-2009 were used. The crash test data were gathered from the following test modes and sources:

1. 1
   Frontal rigid flat barrier test at 35 mph (NHTSA NCAP)
2. 2
   Frontal 40% offset deformable barrier test at 40 mph (IIHS)
3. 3
   Side moving deformable barrier test at 38 mph (NHTSA side NCAP)
4. 4
   Side oblique pole test at 20 mph (US FMVSS 214/NHTSA side NCAP)
5. 5
   Rear 70% offset moving deformable barrier impact at 50 mph (US FMVSS 301).

The accelerometers used were from locations in the vehicle where deformation is minor or non-existent, so that the acceleration represents the “rigid-body” motion of the vehicle. The wide range of variability from vehicle platforms was evident for each of the test modes. The test data were summarized using idealized step-ramp pulses obtained through parametric fit. With this and other simplifications, longitudinal and transverse acceleration test pulses have been created based on the raw test data. They are proposed as lower bounds for testing and evaluating the crashworthiness of advanced batteries for passenger vehicle applications.