The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: Need a good reference for vehicel stiffness data

Antony Dalton (adalton@fticorp.com)
Thu, 23 Jan 1997 12:36:13 -0500 (EST)

Ed,

You are deffinitely correct about the environment affecting the stiffnesses
of older vehicles. Previous "fender benders" before the accident in
question can also cause similar problems. We have found however that these
effects are fairly minor, particularly on cars that aren't 1960's vintage
as most of cars out there aren't! The newer polymers and foams used in
today's vehicles are even less susceptible. All cars crush regardless of
the material. The biggest concern we have in using crash test data to
determine stiffnesses is accurately determining at what speed crush starts.
These new foam core bumpers cause me to lose sleep at night! I still feel
though that when used appropriately, enrgy from crush is a very legitimate
engineering method, and is sometimes the only one available!

As far as sources of crash test data I find it much easier to pay Jim
Neptune to wade through the NHTSA data than to try it myself!
(www.neptune_engineering.com)
Antony Dalton
adalton@fticorp.com

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