Oblique impacts account for a significant amount of real-world accidents. Compared to co-linear frontal crashes, these impacts produce different occupant kinematics and vehicle intrusion patterns. Consequently, a new frontal oblique impact test is being evaluated by NHTSA. Variations in impact conditions and occupant seated positions are immanent in full-scale testing. The aim of this research was to understand how repeatable the test procedure is when relevant parameters are changed within defined test tolerances and how sensitive vehicle and occupant results are, when parameters are varied beyond such tolerances. Finite element simulations and Design of Experiment methods were used to determine the importance of parameters and their individual and combined effect on vehicle and occupant criteria. A point-based rating scheme was used to calculate the overall occupant ratings. A Test Procedure Study, which is described in this paper, evaluated the effect of variations in Offset Moving Deformable Barrier impact angle, misalignment, overlap, mass, and velocity for ranges within (repeatability study) and beyond (sensitivity study) defined test tolerances. The study resulted in an extended database that allowed to analyse how kinematics and loads measured by THOR dummies are affected by a wide range of oblique impact configuration parameters. This research showed overall good repeatability with respect to vehicle kinematics and occupant loads, when relevant parameters were changed within defined tolerances. Far-side occupant loads were more sensitive to test setup variances.
Keywords:
DOE Analysis; finite element simulation; NHTSA’s frontal oblique impact; test tolerances