A review of impact models for vehicle collision.

Automobile accident reconstruction and vehicle collision analysis techniques generally separate vehicle collisions into three different phases: pre- impact, impact and post- impact. This paper is concerned exclusively with the modelling of the impact phase, typically defined as the time the vehicles are in contact. Historically, two different modelling techniques have been applied to the impact of vehicles.Both of these techniques employ the impulse- momentum formulation of Newton's second law. This paper presents the application of these principles to collisions of two bodies in a plane. This relationship between the change in velocity and energy loss is investigated.