Numerical Simulation of a Vehicle Side Impact Test: Development. Application and Design Iterations

This paper describes a numerical simulation technique applicable to the FMVSS 214 side impact test through the use of the finite element method (FEM) technology. The paper outlines the development of the side impact dummy (SID), moving deformable barrier (MDB) and the test vehicle FEM models, as well as the development of new advanced constitutive models of materials and algorithms in LS-DYNA3D which are related to the topic. Presented in the paper are some initial simulation problems which were encountered and solved, as well as the correlation of the simulation data to the physical test.