VEHICLE IMPACT SIMULATION

Improvement in impact simulation between vehicles and roadside safety hardware is investigated. The use DYNA3D, a nonlinear, explicit, three -dimensional, public-domain, finite-element code for vehicle impact nu merical calculations is described. A preliminary example problem of a spherical impactor and a circular plate is used to model an impact bet ween two deformable bodies. Numerical qualitative and quantitative res ults are compared with other known solutions. Finite element models of an actual vehicle and some examples of the roadside safety hardware a re discussed. As a practical example, an impact simulation of a compac t car with a light post is examined. The paper shows that even relativ ely small numbers of degrees of freedom used in DYNA3D program can acc urately predict kinematics of highway vehicle impacts. These results c onclude a preliminary feasibility study to develop the next generation of roadside safety computer software for vehicle impact simulation an d analysis.