Crash performance of front underrun protective device with a passenger car under different crash configurations - Results of Finite element method based simulations

Frontal collisions between passenger cars and trucks are the most severe vehicle-vehicle collisions observed in accident statistics. Regulation 93 was developed to reduce the risk of fatal injury through by preventing passenger cars from underriding heavy truck structures. Although this countermeasure can improve the interaction between the vehicles, the regulation does not fully address the higher energy of content in these collisions where passenger car structures cannot be expected to have sufficient energy absorbing capacity. One solution to problem is to incorporate energy absorbing structures into the Front Underrun Protection Device (e.a. FUPD). The performance of such device under crash with a passenger car has to be investigated.This report shows the results obtained by simulations based on finite element method where the performance of the FUPD has been investigated through variation of the size of the FUPD front cross-beam surface, and its vertical and horizontal overlap with front end of a passenger car