Development of a crashworthy system:​ interaction between car structural integrity, restraint systems and guardrails

Ydenius, Anders; Kullgren, Anders; Tingvall, Claes

Affiliations

Abstract

In the development of a crashworthy road transport system, guard-rails could play an important role in preventing frontal collisions on roads without separated lanes and in avoiding collisions with roadside objects. Crash pulses in crashes into guard rails may differ from e.g. car-to-car collisions, concerning the duration and mean acceleration. If the characteristics of crash pulses into guard-rails differ from those used in the design of vehicle interior restraint systems, it may influence the performance of these systems.. Collisions with soft guardrails, such as wire ropes, may often have pulse duration of 200 ms or more. The performance of e.g. airbag systems in collisions with such duration is rarely studied.

This study presents the results of six crash tests, carried out with identical vehicles running into three types of guard rails at two different test speeds, 80 and 110 km/h, and at two different impact angles, 45° and 20° respectively. The three tested guard-rails were: a flexible barrier - a wire rope, a semi-rigid barrier - a W-beam guard rail and a rigid type - the concrete barrier. The characteristics of these types of guardrails were found to vary a lot concerning the transferred crash severity and physical behavior. The airbags did not deploy in either of the two wire-rope tests, whereas they deployed in the tests with concrete barriers and Wbeam barriers at 45°, 80 km/h. Severe car deformations occurred in the 45°, 80 km/h test with the concrete barrier, while no interior deformation occurred in the wire rope and W-beam tests. The tests demonstrated the wide range of crash behavior with different barriers and guard-rails. Furthermore they demonstrated the importance of choosing the right barrier for a particular need in road construction.

Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/Esv/esv17/Proceed/00052.pdf

Cited Works (3)

Year	Entry
1999	Ydenius A, Kullgren A. Pulse shapes and injury risks in collisions with roadside objects: result from real-life impacts with recorded crash pulses. In: Proceedings of the 1999 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 23-24, 1999; Sitges, Spain.435-442.
1996	Tingvall C, Lie A. The implications of the zero vision on biomechanical research. In: Proceedings of the 1996 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 11-13, 1996; Dublin, Ireland.11-18.
1998	Kullgren A. Validity and Reliability of Vehicle Collision Data: Crash Pulse Recorders for Impact Severity and Injury Risk Assessments in Real-Life Frontal Impacts [PhD thesis]. Stockholm, Sweden: Karolinska Institute; 1998.

Cited By (3)

Year	Entry
2005	Grzebieta RH, Zou R, Jiang T, Carey A. Roadside hazard and barrier crashworthiness issues confronting vehicle and barrier manufactures and government regulators. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 6-9, 2005; Washington, DC.
2002	Ydenius A. Influence of crash pulse duration on injury risk in frontal impacts based on real life crashes. In: Proceedings of the 2002 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 18-20, 2002; Munich, Germany.
2006	Stigson H, Ydenius A, Kullgren A. Variation of crash severity and injury risk depending on collisions with different vehicle types and objects. In: Proceedings of the 2006 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 20-22, 2006; Madrid, Spain.45-60.