Experimental Evaluation of Test Procedures for Frontal Collision Compatibility

This paper investigates test procedures for vehicle frontal crash compatibility. Both Full Width Deformable Barrier (FWDB) tests and Moving Deformable Barrier (MDB) tests were studied to assess relevant factors of compatibility issues. The FWDB test with load cells was examined to evaluate the stiffness and interaction areas of vehicles (sometimes referred to as the aggressivity of vehicles). Compatibility metrics were computed using barrier load cell data and the output from the FWDB test was compared with that from the Full Width Rigid Barrier (FWRB) test. Since the results obtained from these two full width tests were considerably different, a full frontal vehicle-to-vehicle test was carried out to identify structural deformation modes. The results indicated that similar deformation modes were observed between the vehicle-to-vehicle test and the FWDB test. MDB-to-vehicle tests were conducted to replicate vehicle-to-vehicle tests and to evaluate relevant self-protection characteristics of a small vehicle. The deformable face for the MDB that was developed by the load cell wall data in the FWDB test reasonably reproduced the crash characteristics of the actual vehicle.