COMPATIBILITY OF TRUCKS AND CARS IN FRONTAL COLLISIONS: BENEFIT OF AN ENERGY-ABSORBING FRONT UNDERRIDE GUARD

The current regulation ECE-R 93 defines a rigid front underride guard for commercial vehicles to prevent cars from underriding in frontal collisions. It is evident that the benefit of such a protective device can be substantially improved by an energy-absorbing design. In the study presented in this poster, the effect of the energy-absorbing front underride guard of a MAN TG-A series was analysed with two full scale tests. The Golf overlapped frontally with 70% of its width. While absorbing energy, the front underride guard of the MAN and the front structure of the Golf performed well. The compartment of the Golf remained intact without any severe intrusions. The driver in the MAN as well as the driver and passenger in the Golf were represented by Hybrid III dummies (50th percentile male). As expected the dummy responses in the MAN were extremely low. The dummy responses for the Golf occupants also lay below their corresponding biomechenical limits. The results show the protection benefit of an energy-absorbing front underride guard (which is in production now) for impacts on state-of-the-art cars. For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E206514.