Compartment strength and its evaluation in car crashes

Abstract

In car-to-car crashes, the strength of the passenger compartment is widely acknowledged to be a significant factor reducing the injury risks to occupants. In the present research, the methodology for the evaluation of the passenger compartment strength was investigated. Car-to-car crash tests of a small car with stiff and less-stiff passenger compartments were carried out, and it was demonstrated that the stiffer passenger compartment was a very effective means to reduce the intrusion-base injury criteria. A high impact velocity offset deformable barrier (ODB) test was used as an overload test to evaluate the passenger compartment strength. A so-called rebound force is proposed as the criterion for passenger compartment strength. The force can be defined as the barrier force when a crash phase changes from loading to unloading. It was found that the rebound force in an overload test has a strong correlation with the passenger compartment intrusion in car-to-car crashes. The rebound force determined in overload 80 km/h tests was also compared with that in ODB 64 km/h tests. It is possible that the rebound force can be determined at a velocity lower than 80 km/h.