During recent years the accident simulation program PCCRASH was developed, which allows to simulate the vehicles movement before, during and after the impact. As shown in several publications, the software allows to calculate the 3D movement of all involved vehicles. Within SAE 1999-01-0444 a new coupling interface of PC-CRASH and the software MADYMO, developed by TNO in the Netherlands was published.
During last year's publication only few validation cases, mainly related to rear end impacts could be demonstrated.
In the mean while several well documented tests have been performed to validate the performance of this model also in frontal and lateral collisions as well as rollovers.
A special series of sled tests has been performed to study the movement of the passenger during and after the collision for various impact angles. These tests were performed on an active sled at various test speeds.
Regarding rollover a set of full scale tests was performed where a volunteer stunt driver was overturning the vehicles under various conditions. Mainly low speed rolls (app. 20 mph) were investigated. In parallel a standard Hybrid III dummy was sitting beside the stunt driver. The movements of the vehicle, dummy and driver were documented through a high speed video and onboard camera as well as acceleration measurements. This test also demonstrated the big difference in the movement between Human and Hybrid III dummy due to the active movement of the human driver and the long duration of the roll over.
The paper discusses the numerical results compared to the test results. For the sled tests Dummy kinematics as well as accelerations were compared. One major emphasis was set on the influence of the crash pulse, which cannot be derived in PC-CRASH. In this way the paper demonstrates the possibilities as well as the limitations of the numerical model.