Assessment criteria for assessing energy-absorbing front underrun protection on trucks

The objective of this article is to investigate the possibilities to assess (energy-absorbing) front underrun protection (FUP) devices with respect to injuries of the car occupant without using a car and dummy in the test procedure. A large number of different crash configurations are simulated to search for a clear relationship between injury and vehicle criteria. Secondly, a representative structure that can replace a car was found. The simulation results show a correlation between injury levels given by the HARM and the accident severity given by the ASI value. Furthermore, the simulation results show that energy absorption in the FUP lowers the ASI level for all crash scenarios, which consequently results in lower injury levels. The main conclusion is that it is possible to assess the eaFUP performance on the basis of vehicle acceleration signals (non-dummy signals). A component test procedure for assessing eaFUP can be developed on the basis of these simulation results. For a future test procedure, a combination of experimental and virtual testing is proposed. With virtual testing, the behaviour of the eaFUP in different crash scenarios can be evaluated