Samenvatting
The majority of real world frontal collisions involves only partial overlap of the vehicle front. Both, the resulting car deformations and the occupant loadings cannot be simulated with an impact against a flat or an angled (that is to say 30 degrees) barrier, even with an impact speed of 35 mph. As a consequence, safety engineers at Mercedes-Benz have established an adequate offset crash test with 40% barrier overlap. The effectiveness of offset design is demonstrated by means of numerous critical and realistic offset crash tests.