Characterization of Force Deflection Properties for Vehicular Bumper-to-Bumper Interactions 2014-01-1991

This is the complete manuscript and replacement for SAE paper 2014-01-0482, which has been retracted due to incomplete content.

This paper reports on 76 quasi-static tests conducted to investigate the behavior of road vehicle bumper systems. The tests are a quasi-static replication of real world low speed collisions. The tests represented front to rear impacts between various vehicles. Force and deflection were captured in order to quantify the stiffness characteristics of the bumper-to-bumper system.

A specialized test apparatus was constructed to position and load bumper systems into each other. The purpose was to replicate or exceed damage that occurred in actual collisions. The fixture is capable of positioning the bumpers in various orientations and generates forces up to 50 kips. Various bumper-to-bumper alignments were tested including full overlap, lateral offset, and override/underride configurations. Force and displacement were recorded and the data was analyzed to develop system stiffness and crush parameters. These parameters can be used in a collision-based model to calculate vehicle delta-v (ΔV) and acceleration. The simulation uses an impact mechanics-based numerical algorithm published by Scott [6]. The paper reports on the test results of various combinations of vehicle categories. Vehicle type includes passenger, light transport and heavy vehicle bumper systems.