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International Journal of Automotive Technology 2004;5(4): 247-255. |
| DYNAMIC MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF VEHICLE SMART STRUCTURES FOR FRONTAL COLLISION IMPROVEMENT |
| A. M. ELMARAKBI, J. W. ZU |
| University of Toronto |
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| ABSTRACT |
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The majority of real world frontal collisions involves partial overlap (offset) collision, in which only one of the two longitudinal members is used for energy absorption. This leads to dangerous intrusions of the passenger compartment. Excessive intrusion is usually generated on the impacted side causing higher contact injury risk on the occupants compared with full frontal collision. The ideal structure needs to have extendable length when the front-end structure is not capable to absorb crash energy without violating deceleration pulse requirements. A smart structure has been proposed to meet this ideal requirement. The proposed front-end structure consists of two hydraulic cylinders integrated with the front-end longitudinal members of standard vehicles. The work carried out in this paper includes developing and analyzing mathematical models of two different cases representing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-tobarrier in full and offset collisions. By numerical crash simulations, this idea has been evaluated and optimized. It is proven form numerical simulations that the smart structures bring significantly lower intrusions and decelerations. In addition, it is shown that the mathematical models are valid, flexible, and can be used in an effective way to give a quick insight of real life crashes. |
| Key Words:
Crashworthiness, Full and offset frontal collision, Smart structures, Injury criteria, Numerical simulation |
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