Today, many auto makers and national researchers are interested
in the compatibility of standard vehicle crash testing to that of
real accident conditions. Current standard tests assume like
vehicle-to-vehicle crash events to address the injury or fatality
risk to vehicle occupants. Researchers that investigate
vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests struggle to understand the
relationship between aggressivity and injury measurements compared
to those of accident investigation data like FARS and NASS GES.
Such tests, however, can be simulated with finite element methods
to re-enact real accident conditions to predict detailed vehicle
measurements in order to make study structural improvements. In
order to understand the nature of compatibility and to facilitate
structural improvements, robust parametric studies and structural
optimization methodologies can be employed to manage the complex,
coupled design parameters and geometric changes.
In the past, assembling, executing, managing and interpreting
the results has prevented this level of parametric study.
StudyWizard, developed by Altair Engineering, is a software
technology specifically designed to automate and extract meaningful
design information from parametric analytical studies. Using
StudyWizard, this paper will demonstrate a strong relationship
between aggressivity and injury revealed by FARS data set for an
oblique offset vehicle-to-vehicle crash. For this paper, a
full-sized sedan compatibility study is performed for impacts with
a light truck and van. The aggressivity characteristics; vehicle
mass, stiffness and stackup will be discussed. To conclude,
compatibility improvements will be examined.