Evaluation and Research of Structural Interaction between of two cars in Car to Car Compatibility 2003-01-2819

Incompatibility between two colliding cars is becoming an important issue in passive safety engineering. Among various phenomena, indicating signs of incompatibility, over-riding and under-riding are likely caused by geometrical incompatibility in vertical direction. The issue of over-riding and under-riding is, therefore, not only a problem for partner-protection but also a possible disadvantage in self-protection. One of the possible solutions of this dual contradictory problem is to have a good structural interaction between the front-ends of two cars. Studies have been done to develop a test protocol for assessment of this interaction and to define criteria for evaluation but mostly in terms of aggressivity, which is a term describing incompatibility of a relatively stronger car. In this study, it was hypothesized that homogeneous front-end could be a possible better solution for good structural interaction. A homogeneous front-end will result in less aggressivity and better self-protection at the same time, regardless of the front-end stiffness of an opponent car. Stress distribution at the front-end surface can be taken as possible indicators to quantitatively evaluate homogeneity of the car front-end. A multiple load-cell barrier enables to analyze stress distribution by measuring force inputs at discrete load-cells outputs though a crash test. In addition to digitizing stress distribution on the load-cell surface, statistical techniques can be used to quantify the deviation. A simulation study was conducted on simple frame models to examine the validity of the hypothesis and the capability of the proposed indicators.