A Crashworthiness Research Center Funded by the Federal Highway Administration

CRASHWORTHINESS (n.) - the probability that motor vehicle occupants will not be killed or seriously injured when involved in a motor vehicle collision with a roadside safety structure.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has designated the Silicon Valley Office of ARA as the new Center of Excellence in Finite Element Crash Analysis. The goal of the research center is to conduct crashworthiness research on roadside safety structures and geometric features using the finite element code LS-DYNA (a three dimensional general purpose code for the dynamic analysis of materials and structures). The FHWA has selected ARA as the new Center of Excellence because ARA personnel have "demonstrated a high degree of knowledge and experience in applying this code to the prediction of motor vehicle crash results." ARA also has the supercomputing facilities necessary to quickly and efficiently run complex roadside structure models in conjunction with complex motor vehicles models.

Aesthetic Bridge Rails for California Highways

ARA and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) have teamed together to develop new aesthetic bridge rail designs for California highways. Bridges are often important architectural and symbolic structures for communities. Many existing railing designs do not provide adequate visibility, are generally not aesthetically pleasing to the public, and detract from the natural beauty of a region. ARA is working closely with the Roadside Safety Technology Branch of Caltrans to generate railing concepts, conduct preliminary design of each concept, and to ensure the final design meets all roadside hardware requirements. ARA will conduct LS-DYNA analyses of the preliminary and final bridge rail concepts to assist in the design process. Crash testing of the new roadside hardware will be performed by Caltrans at the Caltrans Dynamic Test Facility to validate the final bridge rail design.

Crash Analysis of the LifeNet SoftWall Barrier. The LifeNet SoftWall barrier is a new barrier concept that provides a soft catch response of a vehicle that drives into the median strip. Preliminary Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed to assess the response of a full size pickup truck impacting the SoftWall barrier at an angle of 20 degrees and an impact speed of 62 miles per hour. The analysis demonstrated the potential for the barrier to produce an acceptable crash response for the performance evaluation factors that are used to evaluate roadside safety features (NCHRP Report 350 Criteria).

Development of a Detailed Model for Ford Crown Victoria Crash Simulations. Evaluation of crashworthiness of roadside safety features requires the use of finite element models of appropriate vehicles. A detailed finite element model was developed of a 1997 Ford Crown Victoria . The project included vehicle teardown and digitization, model generation, and validation. This effort describes the process used to generate the vehicle models used in the crash analysis of roadside safety features.

Modeling of the Side Impact Dummy (SID).Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATDs or crash dummies) are important tools used to evaluate crash safety of vehicles and occupant injury potential in collisions. The SID is an ATD used to evaluate the occupant response and injury potential for side impacts. A finite element model of the SID was created and evaluated for various test conditions.

Collision Response of a Breakaway Luminaire Support. Breakaway attachments provide enhanced crash safety for many types of roadside hardware. A simple finite element model of a California type 31 slipbase luminaire support was developed for performing example vehicle impact simulations. The model was developed to allow the breakaway force to be easily varied in simulations. The model can then be used to study the effect of luminaire support design modifications on safety for a variety of collision scenarios.

Vehicle Models

The Center of Excellence utilizes the many vehicle models currently available from the National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC), operated by George Washington University, to perform crashworthiness research of roadside hardware. These models have been specifically developed for this intended purpose. A list of available models are provided below.

Reference

Kirkpatrick, S.W., MacNeill, R.A., and Bocchieri, R.T., "Development of an LS-DYNA Occupant Model for use in Crash Analyses of Roadside Safety Features," Transportation Review Board, Paper No. TRB2003-0002450, Proc. of the 2003 TRB 82nd annual meeting, Washington D.C. Jan. 12-16, 2003.
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Kirkpatrick, S.W. and MacNeill, R.A., "Development of a Computer Model for Prediction of Collision Response of a Railroad Passenger Car," Proc. JRC2002, The 2002 ASME/IEEE Joint Rail Conference, Washington D.C. , Apr. 23-25, 2002.
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S.W. Kirkpatrick, M. Schroeder, and J.W. Simons, "Evaluation of Passenger Rail Vehicle Crashworthiness," International Journal of Crashworthiness, IJCrash Vol. 6 No. 1 pp. 95-106, 2001 .
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S.W. Kirkpatrick, "Development and Validation of High Fidelity Vehicle Crash Simulation Models," SAE Publications, Presented-2000 International Congress and Exposition, March, 2000, SAE Paper No. 00PC-248.
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J.W. Simons and S.W. Kirkpatrick, "High-Speed Passenger Train Crashworthiness and Occupant Survivability," International Journal of Crashworthiness, IJCrash Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 121-132, 1999.
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S.W. Kirkpatrick, J.W. Simons, and T.H. Antoun, 1998, "Development and Validation of High Fidelity Vehicle Crash Simulation Models," International Journal of Crashworthiness, IJCrash98 International Crashworthiness Conference, pp. 602-611.
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M. H. Ray, K. Hiranmayee, and S.W. Kirkpatrick, 1998, "Performance Validation of Two Side Impact Dummies," International Journal of Crashworthiness, IJCrash98 International Crashworthiness Conference, pp. 285-298.,
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S. W. Kirkpatrick, B. S. Holmes, T. C. Hollowell, C. Gabler, and T. Trella, "Finite Element Modeling of the Side Impact Dummy (SID)," Human Surrogates: Design, Development, & Side Impact Protection, SAE Publications, SP-945 (presented at International Congress & Exposition, Mar. 1993).,
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