Compatibility optimization of passenger cars

Nowadays traffic safety and occupant protection get a lot of attention due to the large number of fatalities and injuries in car accidents. The occupant protection in two-vehicle crashes can be improved by car-to-car compatibility, which means well balanced crashworthiness characteristics of both cars. The aim of this project (part of an European project) is to optimize the compatibility of the car fleet. Two most dangerous scenarios were modelled and validated for three vehice mass categories, which were based on the actual car fleet. The models, developed and optimized in the simulation software MADYMO, consisted of the passenger compartment and relevant crush elements. The compatibility improvement was defined as a design optimization problem. The optimizations resulted in minimized injury risk in all collisions. From the results it can be concluded that the approach may help to solve the car-to-car compatibility problem