Citation

Northrup J. Collision 2007; 2(2): 66-69.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Collision Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Accident reconstructionists traditionally use test skids and drag sleds to establish drag factors for surfaces the vehicles travel over in collisions. However, vehicles increasingly are being instrumented with accelerometers, which can provide data to determine the usable drag factor for a given vehicle and surface combination. The purpose of the testing done and outlined in this paper is to compare two units run side by side in a series of skid tests to compare the average g value of a Vericom VC-2000 and the averaged data from a Race Technology AP-22 Vehicle Performance Meter. After comparing and reporting the differences from these two units, the authors examine a series of skid tests with a vehicle instrumented with the AP-22 unit. The findings show that different devices, methods and sample rates can affect the results. The results also indicate that when performing instrumented skid tests, it is useful to perform at least 3 runs and to closely consider the data from each since they can vary considerably.