Search Results

Sled testing is one of the most important test methods for the evaluation of vehicles interior with respect to crash safety. This method allows one to simulate real crash conditions without destroying the vehicle structure. In addition to conventional sleds which are accelerated smoothly using a bungee cord or other device and then impact a deformation element, catapult sled types act in a reverse mode. The sled is thus accelerated for approximately 100 ms to the impact speed and then smoothly decelerated. To ensure good correlation with the full scale crash test an accurate modelling of the vehicles crash pulse must be guaranteed Catapult type sleds guarantee, that the sled will not move before the pulse starts. Therefore well defined initial conditions especially regarding dummy positioning can be guaranteed. While conventional catapult type sleds mainly work on hydraulic or pneumatic modulation of the pulse.

During recent years the accident simulation program PCCRASH was developed, which allows to simulate the vehicles movement before, during and after the impact. As shown in several publications, the software allows to calculate the 3D movement of all involved vehicles. Within SAE 1999-01-0444 a new coupling interface of PC-CRASH and the software MADYMO, developed by TNO in the Netherlands was published. During last year's publication only few validation cases, mainly related to rear end impacts could be demonstrated. In the mean while several well documented tests have been performed to validate the performance of this model also in frontal and lateral collisions as well as rollovers. A special series of sled tests has been performed to study the movement of the passenger during and after the collision for various impact angles. These tests were performed on an active sled at various test speeds.