An investigation has been performed to predict full vehicle frontal crash behaviours in collapse zone of the front side rail through the front sub-structure vehicle impact test. Attaching the front structure of a vehicle to the rear crash (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 301) moving barrier makes the front sub-structure vehicle. The test condition is set-up to represent full vehicle crash mode in the collapse zone of the front side rail, a sub-structure finite element (FE) model is built from full vehicle FE model. Mass and initial velocity of the model are changed so that the model has the same kinetic energy on the US New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) frontal crash condition. A preferable model in point of a test set-up is suggested, and the analysis result is compared with the other results. Even though the model has 17% of the NCAP kinetic energy, the results of the sub-structure model look similar to that of full vehicle FE analysis in point of deformation and transmitted section force. Finally, the crash test is done for the sub-structure vehicle, and the test result is compared with the analysis result. Two results show good correlation with each other. It is shown that the sub-structure vehicle crash test can be a useful tool to develop the front side rail in early design stage with saving development time and cost.
Abstract