Evaluation and Research of Structural Interaction between Two Cars in Frontal Compatibility

Incompatibility between two colliding cars is becoming an important issue in passive safety engineering. Indicating signs of incompatibility, “over-riding and under-riding” and “forking” are likely caused by geometrical incompatibility in vertical and horizontal directions. The issue 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. In this study, it was hypothesized that homobeneous front-end could be a possible better solution for good structural interaction. Stress distribution at the front-end surface can be taken as possible indicators to quantitatively evaluate homogeneity. A multiple load-cell berrier enables to analyze stress distribution by measuring force through crash tests. In addition to digitizing stress distribution on the load-cell surface, statistical techniques can be used to quantify the deviation. Both simulation and experiment were conducted on actual front-end frame structure to examine the validity of the hypothesis and the capability of the proposed indicators. Finite element results (RADIOSS-CRASH) match with experimental result. Effect of curvature in dispersion of loads was also studied.