Automobile crash test facility and preliminary analysis of low speed crush characteristics

A large percentage of automobile accidents in city traffic occur at speeds below 15 mph. Unfortunately there is a scarcity of experimental crash data at these low speeds to help investigators to reconstruct accidents. Accident reconstruction experts have consequently attached a low level of confidence to speed predictions from vehicle crush at the low end of the speed spectrum. The need for more experimental crash data, especially in a low speed range, has repeatedly been mentioned by accident investigators. The University of British Columbia Accident Research Croup has constructed a crash test facility in conjunction with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to address this need. The lCBC-UBC barrier is a low speed crash test facility. A description of the ICBC-UBC crash barrier, its systems and crash testing techniques at the ICBC-UBC facility are presented in this thesis. Also multiple impacts on the same vehicle are investigated to see if this technique provided accumulated crush data that reproduced known high speed crashes. In addition, the preliminary findings are presented on the impact speed to initiate permanent crush and subsequent implications toward vehicle crush characteristics in a low speed range.Applied Science, Faculty ofCivil Engineering, Department ofGraduat