Vehicle Design Parameter Study for Side Impacts Using Full- Vehicle Simulation

This paper describes a study that was conducted to determine sensitivity of several design factors for reducing injury values of occupants upon side impact using Taguchi method. The full mid-sized vehicle finite element model is used for the analysis under two different side impact standards~SINCAP and ECE-R 95. The design factors that may have major effect on side impacts were selected and L\d8 orthogonal array was set up for analysis.

Analysis results show that strengthening the passenger compartment improves occupant protection, especially adding a pusher foam is significantly lowering the injury values in SINCAP. No single factor has major effects on rib deflection which is considered as critical occupant injury criterion in ECE- R 95.

Taguchi method was found to be a useful tool, although its usage may be limited in crash analysis, for predicting the effect of various design factors on structure.