Evaluation of the safety performance of passenger vehicles

Zobel, Robert

Affiliations

¹Volkswagen AG, Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

The evaluation of the safety performance of passenger vehicles is in most test procedures restricted to the inherent safety. But in real-world accidents, the vehicle influences both its own passengers and the passengers of the colliding vehicle or the cyclists or the peclestrians. So test procedures that can only measure the performance of the vehicle and neglect the influence of the colliding vehicle will not be able to describe the safety performance completely.

Another problem is the separate evaluation of front-impact and side-impact. When side-impact protection is increased on the one hand side and the front of the vehicle becomes more stiff, due to increased front-impact protection, a high increase of safety will be measured, although no progress to side-impact protection may occur in real-world accidents.

By computer simulation, these effects can be described. A frontal impact with a movable deformable barrier only makes sense when the acceleration of the barrier is measured as well, and by mathematical simulation transformed to a dummy load of the "passenger of the struck vehicle". A side impact of the vehicle against a vehicle of the same type may show the "self-compatibility" and detect too stiff front-structures.

Cited Works (1)

Year	Entry
1982	Richter B, Zobel R. Aspects of the passive safety motor vehicles. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles (ESV). November 1-4, 1982; Kyoto, Japan.759-765.

Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
1990	Thomas C, Faverjon G, Henry C, Le Coz JY, Got C, Patel A. The problem of compatibility in car-to-car collisions. In: 34th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 1-3, 1990; Scottsdale, AZ.253-267.
1996	Bloch J-A, Chevalier M-C. In-depth analysis of offset frontal crash tests in view of external aggressivity criteria. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 13-16, 1996; Melbourne, Australia.634-638.
1996	Schoeneburg R, Zakmak M, Zobel R, Busch D. Evaluation of crash compatibility of vehicles with the aid of finite element analysis. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 13-16, 1996; Melbourne, Australia.737-745.
2001	Barbat S, Li X, Prasad P. A comparative analysis of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-rigid fixed barrier frontal impacts. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 4-7, 2001; Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
1999	Buzeman-Jewkes DG, Viano DC, Lövsund P. A multi-body integrated vehicle-occupant model for compatibility studies in frontal crashes. J Crash Prev Injury Control. 1999;1(2):143-154.