The Dutch Ministry of Transport has commissioned SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research to carry out a simulation study into side collisions of cars against bicyclists. The aim of the study is to obtain a description of an ideal car front in terms of shape and stiffness. An ideal car front will cause minimal harm in case of side collisions with bicyclists. SWOV used its computer program VEDYAC for this purpose, after developing three specific models: a bicyclist model, a bicycle model and a car front model. These models were validated using data of experimental collisions from TNO Road Vehicles Research Institute. To evaluate the results of the actual simulations, a standard simulation was carried out. This standard simulation was a bicycle side collision, in which the bicycle travelled at 15 km/h and the car at 30 km/h. The car front was the standard developed and validated in the first part of the study. In the actual simulation the bonnet angle was varied from approximately 10 degrees up to 90 degrees. The last case represented a totally flat front end. The results of the simulation study indicate that the ideal front end should be high (bonnet angle between 75 degrees and 90 degrees) if the reduction of head acceleration is concerned. Chest acceleration increases with increasing bonnet angle, but this is considered of less importance compared with the reduction of head acceleration. It is recommended to carry out collision tests with a simulated car front end that represents a high front end.
Abstract