Dynamics of Vehicle-to-Vehicle Side Impact Crash Tests

In this paper, the vehicle impact dynamics associated with nine vehicle-to-vehicle side impact crash tests were analyzed. Each crash test involved high closing speeds. In each test, the front of the bullet vehicle struck the side of the target vehicle. Maximum vehicle acceleration, crash pulse duration, residual crash and coefficient of restitution were compared with results from NHTSA moveable deformable barrier (MDB) tests. The results showed that vehicle-to-vehicle crash pulses were more than twice as long as those for the MDB-to-vehicle crash tests on average. The maximum lateral acceleration for the target vehicles in the MDB-to-vehicle crash tests were more than 50% greater than those of the target vehicles in the vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests. The change in velocities associated with the target vehicles for the MDB-to-vehicle tests were significantly less than those for the target vehicles in the vehicle-to-vehicle tests. An examination of the relationship between maximum residual crash of the target vehicle and crash pulse for the vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests revealed that the crash pulse increases as the maximum residual crush of the target vehicle increases. Negative coefficients of restitution resulted when the bullet vehicle effectively pushed the target vehicle aside and the vehicles never attained a common velocity. The highest coefficients of restitution were shown when the bullet vehicles struck the front axle and firewall of the target vehicle.