MADYMO modelling of a car impacting an energy absorbing rear truck underrun barrier

This paper describes the development of a three-dimensional mathematical model simulating a car crashing into the rear of a truck with an energy-absorbing rear underrun barrier attached. The underrun barrier was designed to absorb part of the impact energy of the car and hence reduce the injuries of the car occupants. The collision was simulated in order to aid the design and analysis of energy-absorbing truck underrun barrier systems. A Hybrid III 50th percentile male dummy was used in the model to calculate the Head Injury Criterion (HIC) for the head resultant acceleration and the chest resultant acceleration. The vehicle deceleration pulse during impact, resultant forces in the barrier and tube-in-tube struts as well as the injury outcome from the dummy were compared with those of a laboratory crash test to validate the model. The computer simulation results show fairly good agreement with crash tests indicating that such models can be used at a relatively low cost to design crashworthy structures and investigate injury prevention counter-measures. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see IRRD abstract no. E200025.