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Technical Paper

Estimating Crush Stiffness when Reconstructing Vehicle Accidents

1993-03-01
930898
Energy equivalence calculations from damage deformation have evolved through the years as a principal analysis technique for the accident reconstructionist. The foundation for this analytical technique is the crash test data that has accumulated over the last few decades for specific vehicles crashed into or by barriers. During a reconstruction, the problem that often arises is that crash test data is not available for one of the vehicles involved in the collision. In such a situation, it is customary to use crush stiffness values from vehicles of similar wheel base and weight or abandon the crush energy approach altogether. Alternate approaches to calculating vehicle speeds prior to impact, however, often require the use of other undesirable uncertainties.
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