The performance investigation of viscoelastic hybrid models in vehicle crash event representation

Abstract

This paper presents application of physical models composed of springs, dampers and masses joined together in various arrangements to simulation of a real car collision with a rigid pole. Equations of motion of those systems are being established and subsequently solutions to obtained differential equations are formulated. We start with a general model consisting of two masses, two springs, and two dampers, and illustrate its application to represent fore-frame and aft-frame of a vehicle. Hybrid models, as being particular cases of two mass-spring-damper model, are elaborated afterwards and their application to predict results of real collision is shown. Models' parameters are obtained by fitting their response equations to the real vehicle's crush coming from the acceleration measurement analysis. For full-scale experiment and created models we perform both: kinematic and energy responses comparative analysis.