Structural Improvement for the Crash Safety of Commercial Vehicle 2009-01-2917

Statistic analysis on commercial vehicle crash accidents in China were done by using the annual traffic accident reports from Ministry of Public Security. The Chinese crash safety rules on commercial vehicle were introduced. The main reasons which cause severe injury to the passenger in the cab in frontal crash accidents were studied. HYPERMESH software was used to do the finite element modelling of the frontal structure and cab of a production truck. The swing hammer impact simulation was conducted by using LS-DYNA software and the results were compared with the test results to validate the model. A new supporting structure for the cab to improve the safety of the passenger in cab was proposed. Meanwhile, an extendable and retractable longitudinal beam energy absorbing structure was also studied by using the finite element model. The simulation results show that these structures can obviously improve the frontal crash safety of the commercial vehicle.