Development and validation of side-impact crash and sled testing finite-element models

Side-impact collisions are the second leading cause of death and injury in the traffic accidents after frontal crashes. Side-impact airbags, side door bars and other protection techniques have been developed to provide occupant protection. To confirm the effectiveness of protection equipment installed in vehicles, studying the degree of impact is fundamental to understand the effect of automobile collisions on the human body. Therefore, the dynamic response of the human body to traffic accidents should be analyzed to reduce the level of occupant injuries. Generally, the experimental method is complex and expensive. Recently, numerical crash simulations have provided a valuable tool for automotive engineers. This work presents full-scale and sled side-impact test finite-element (FE) models – based on the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 214 – that simulate a side-impact accident. The crash simulations utilized the LS-DYNA finite-element code. The human body's dynamic response to crashes is discussed herein. Additionally, occupant injuries were measured. To verify the accuracy of the proposed crash test and sled test FE models, simulation results are compared with those obtained from experimental tests. The comparison results indicate that the proposed crash test and sled test FE models have considerable potential for assessing a vehicle's crash safety performance and assisting future development of safety technologies.