Trends in Sensing Frontal Impacts

Velocity Scaling as a method of predicting the pulse shape for frontal barrier crashes at different velocities is reviewed. Frontal barrier crashes are found to have a nearly constant duration regardless of the velocity of impact. Non-barrier pulses however frequently have much longer durations. A methodology, called Crash Scaling is introduced to predict non-barrier pulses from barrier pulses. This methodology is then used to evaluate crush zone and non-crush zone sensor systems.