Technical Paper
Truck and Sport Utility Vehicle Front End Stiffness Corridors
2018-04-03
2018-01-0518
The purpose of this study was to characterize front stiffness response of contemporary sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and trucks. Vehicle front impact test data were obtained from data published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA]. For all tests, force data were obtained from barrier load cells and stroke data were derived from accelerometers. Data from 53 truck and SUV tests were aggregated by vehicle product segment according to body style to obtain mean ± standard deviation (SD) stiffness corridors: (1) compact unibody SUV/crossover, (2) small unibody SUV/crossover, (3) mid-size unibody SUV/crossover, (4) frame SUV, and (5) frame truck. To compare between vehicle product segments, this study also considered the average stiffness (slope) within the stroke region required to achieve 300 kN total barrier force. Across unibody SUV segments, average stiffness varied from 1.4–1.8 kN/mm.
