Estimation of Frontal Crush Stiffness Coefficients for Car-to-Heavy Truck Underride Collisions

Massoud S. Tavakoli, Palanippan Valliappan, Anand Pranesh, Carl M. Savage

Research output: Contribution to conferencePresentation

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to evaluate a public domain finite element (FE) model of a 1990 Ford Taurus from the perspective of crush energy absorption. The validity of the FE model was examined by comparing simulation results to several published full-frontal crash tests. The suitability of the model for underride simulation was evaluated against two series of full-scale crash tests into vertically offset rigid barriers. Next, the evaluated FE model was used to pursue the main objective of this work, namely to develop an approach for estimating underride crush energy. The linear-spring methodology was adopted whereby the underride crush stiffness was determined by relating the residual upper radiator support deformation to crush energy. An underride crush stiffness estimation method was proposed based on modifying the full-frontal stiffness coefficients. The method was further simplified into a “Rule-of-Thumb” estimation method, and an example of its application was provided along with a discussion of its estimation accuracy.
Original languageAmerican English
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 16 2007
EventSAE International Congress Exposition -
Duration: Apr 16 2007 → …

Conference

ConferenceSAE International Congress Exposition
Period4/16/07 → …

Disciplines

  • Mechanical Engineering

Cite this