A rising share of electric microcars (with mass well below 800kg) is predicted for the future urban vehicle fleet. Therefore the relevance of safety hazards due to mass incompatibility in case of front crashes will increase significantly. The front crash test according to ECE regulation no.94 initially defined for M class vehicles does not allow to reproduce the predicted real-world crash severity for light vehicles. This paper describes an alternative test for front crash assessment of microcars using a mobile progressive deformable barrier (MPDB) with adjusted mass properties. Since the long term development of the vehicle fleet is unclear, a test set-up with parameterized barrier mass properties having the potential to reproduce variable car-to-car front crash constellations is proposed.

The relevant test parameters for a microcar front crash test are chosen based on predicted future trends from literature, expert surveys and car-to-car crash sensitivity tests. Based on that, a finite element (FE) model of a parametric MPDB is proposed, reproducing the mass properties of various possible front crash opponents. To quantify the use potential of the test, a comparison of MPDB test outputs for three types of possible microcar concepts with car-to-car crash outputs using FE Generic Car Models from the FIMCAR project as opponents is carried out. The main focus of this comparison is on structural crash performance and occupant injury. In order to bridge these two, an adequate crash restraint system triggering based on the acceleration sensing system is proposed.

As conclusion general use recommendations for the parametric MPDB test configuration are formulated.

The study presented within this document was executed within the EC co-financed project SafeEV (Safe Small Electric Vehicles through Advanced Simulation Methodologies) – www.project-safeev.eu