Citation

Mizuno K, Arai Y. Int. J. Crashworthiness 2010; 15(6): 571-579.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13588261003771707

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The effectiveness of matching the heights of front rails was investigated based on car-to-car crash tests conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in Japan. Two minicar-to-large car crash tests were conducted with different conditions of front rail heights. In the test of the original ride height (where the minicar front rails were lower than the large car), the minicar underrode the large car and the upper location of the minicar structure deformed. In the second test, car ride heights were modified so that the front rail heights for each vehicle were matched. For this case, the front rails of both cars deformed and dummy injury criteria in the minicar were reduced. The height of front rails and their deformations were also examined in car-to-car crash test data. In the tests where the front rails were lower than the other cars, their longitudinal deformations tended to be small but vertical deformations were large. It was shown that matching of the height of front rails was effective for improving the structural energy absorption and for the reduction of the dummy injury criteria.