Citation

Erickson MS, Wilson PE, Hayes C. Collision 2007; 2(1): 34-36.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Collision Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents a technique for damage-based collision severity reconstruction for use when crush measurements are only available for one vehicle. Although missing a vehicle presents a complicating factor, if good crush profile data are available for one of the vehicles and crush stiffness data, vehicle weight and impact orientation is known for both vehicles, a force-balance reconstruction technique can be implemented. This technique allows the damage energy absorbed by the missing vehicle to be calculated based on the peak collision force along with the vehicle's structure stiffness coefficients. Although the equation presented in this paper relates to a two-vehicle collision involving uniform crush profiles, the theory can be expanded to include non-uniform crush profiles and varying principal direction of force.