Technical Paper
The Effect of Vehicle Planar Geometry Model Non-Orthogonality for the Constant Stiffness Force-Crush Model: Part 1
2007-04-16
2007-01-0745
The subject study is the first in a multi-part study that assesses the effects of vehicle planar geometry model non-orthogonality within the context of the constant stiffness force-crush model. The concept of the crush space is first developed. It is shown that under the constraints of the constant stiffness force-crush model that regardless of the complexity of the undeformed vehicle geometry that the crush space is orthogonal and the mapping of vehicle crush into this space retains this orthogonality. Closed form analytical solutions are developed for the mapping of vehicle crush for simple multilinear approximations, the general multilinear approximation and simple circular segment model. Included in this development is the use of measurements taken with respect to a reference plane or line that is parallel to one of the undeformed vehicle principal axes.