Post Crash Exterior Crush Patterns and Motor Vehicle Fire Occurrence

This paper describes a methodology to characterize external crush patterns for NASS CDS crash cases. Further, external vehicle crush patterns for cases where crash induced fires and fuel leakage occurred were the focus of this study.

External crush measurements for frontal, side and rear crash cases collected by NASS/CDS investigators from 1995-2004 were compiled. For frontal, side and rear damage areas, the 10^th, 25^th, 50^th, 75^th and 95^th percentile crush levels were calculated and plotted. Based on crash deltaV, an evaluation of high, moderate and low severity impacts with varied collision types was performed. Results are plotted. Results of this evaluation provides a graphical representation of the most commonly deformed regions per crash type in order to provide guidance for optimized placement of wiring, fuel lines and gas tanks. Further, this study evaluates ignition factors provided by NASS/CDS investigators leading to minor versus major under-hood fires as they relate to the nature of exterior crush (i.e. depth and shape) which has taken place.