Sled Test Development and Occupant Protection Evaluation Based on the Frontal Crash Response of Heavy Trucks

Full-scale vehicle crash testing is an accurate method to reproduce many real-world crash conditions in a controlled laboratory environment. However, the costs involved in performing full-scale crash tests can be prohibitive for some purposes. Dynamic sled testing is a lower cost and widely used method to obtain multiple, useful data sets for development of frontal crash mitigating technologies, systems and components. Wherever possible, dynamic sled tests should use vehicle-specific deceleration pulses determined from full-scale vehicle crash tests.

This paper establishes a dynamic sled test protocol based on data collected from eight full-scale heavy vehicle frontal crash tests. The sled test protocol is intended to be utilized as a basis for building a body of knowledge needed to update heavy vehicle frontal impact test recommended practices. These recommended practices provide direction for the development of frontal crash mitigating technologies, systems and components. Additionally, the performance of some frontal crash occupant protection technologies found in heavy vehicles is evaluated.