Simulation of vehicle kinematics in rollover tests with quaternions

Abstract

The paper provides a method to simulate the vehicle kinematics in rollover tests. There are several rollover tests in use: SAE J2114 dolly rollover, ditch rollover, corkscrew, curb trip, and soil trip. Sensors located on board the vehicle record the various accelerations and make it possible to reconstruct the whole event with high accuracy, which is difficult in real-world accidents. Euler parameters, as a useful method to describe the orientation of a rigid body, have been widely used in three-dimensional multi-body and rollover crash simulations. A method based on the Euler parameters derived from the test data is used to simulate the vehicle rollover kinematics in a SAE J2114 dolly rollover test. The detailed procedure from the raw data to the Euler parameters is described and the influence of gravity included in the test data is removed by projecting to a local vehicle reference system. The method is validated by simulating the dolly rollover test in MADYMO, using a simple rigid body model to represent the vehicle. Good agreement is obtained from the comparison between the simulated vehicle orientation and the test video, and the comparison between simulated displacements and calculated displacements using the recorded test accelerations at the same points. This demonstrated that the method proposed is a useful and effective method for simulating vehicle kinematics in rollover tests.