Safety Performance of Passenger Cars Designed to Accommodate Frontal impacts with Partial Barrier Overlap

Safety considerations at Daimler-Benz are based on real-world accidents from which internal test procedures are derived. The example of the frontal collision is a clear illustration of this. In a crash against a flat, full car width barrier, a rare occurrence in real-world accidents, the impact energy is distributed over the entire width of the car. The majority of real-world frontal crashes, however, involve only partial overlap of the front. An adequately designed structure has to absorb the crash energy before it deforms the passenger compartment, i. e. by distributing the impact forces, and strategically located components must avoid the formation of blocks. In particular, the passenger compartment must be sufficiently stiff. Restraint systems and interior padding can only serve their protective purpose to their fullest if the survival space for the occupants is maintained intact.