EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF CFD INTEGRATED AIRBAG MODELS LS-DYNA, MADYMO, AND PAM-CRASH. IN: CAE METHODS FOR VEHICLE CRASHWORTHINESS AND OCCUPANT SAFETY, AND SAFETY-CRITICAL SYSTEMS

In this study, specially designed static deployment tests were conducted to capture the pressure distribution inside a flat airbag. The computational fluid dynamics capability of the 3 main commercial crash simulation software packages used in automotive safety research--LS-DYNA, MADYMO, and PAM-CRASH--were evaluated simultaneously according to the test data. Strengths and limitations of each software package are discussed.