Numerical analysis of a small European vehicle under rollover condition

Abstract: Quasi-static and dynamic roof crush simulations have been carried out successfully on a small European car that was loaded at different pitch/roll angles. The results obtained were validated against the MIRA experimental dynamic roof crush outputs and against the Bolton experiments performed under FMVSS 216. Overall, the outcomes show that bonded windscreens contribute to nearly 30 per cent of the roof strength, thus confirming similar results obtained by a number of other researchers. Furthermore, these results show that roof strength is a function of roll and pitch angles which also greatly influence the overall intrusion rate. The new findings illustrate that, having a fixed loading pitch angle, the roof strength decreases when the roll angles are between 15 and 45°. If the pitch angle is increased, the same phenomenon of reduced strength is observed. However, this does not signify that the roof becomes weaker with increasing pitch angle, because there are limits within which this can occur, and hence the worst-case loading that yields the smallest strength is found at pitch 10° and roll 45°. Therefore, it is recommended in this paper that an update be made to the FMVSS 216, where a roll angle of 45 ° (not 25°) and a pitch angle of 10 ° (not 5°) be used as they constitute the worst-case loading condition. As a result, a more realistic test configuration with angles that replicate real-world accident data can be represented