Analysis of Impact Energy as a Basis of Collision Severity in Vehicle Accidents

Abstract

The need to advance vehicle safety is a significant aspect in vehicle manufacture dynamics. This is due to many variables present during vehicle collisions accidents. As such, major concerns should focus on the effects resulting from impact energy and forces from car crash. However, existing systems in vehicle transport safety employ little techniques to limit these effects. This study is aimed at determining the effects of frontal impact energy in vehicle collision accidents and its influence on speed adaptation. A simulation method was adopted based on impulse-momentum theorem, work-energy principle and intelligence speed adaptation (ISA) techniques. Data from the methods was collected and analyzed against Crashworthiness Data presented by General Motors Group using Minitab® 17.0, SigmaPlot® 13.0 and MATLAB®-Simulink platform. This analysis was conducted based on vehicle categories namely light, medium and heavy vehicles, also referred to as compact, intermediate and full-sizes respectively. It was established that impact energy inflicts severe vehicle damages at elevated speeds relative to vehicle weights. Furthermore, the study established that the force-deflection properties can be used to estimate full frontal impact energy, from which a relation between the conserved kinetic energy (KE) and full frontal impact energy was derived. The relation was used to develop a speed adaptation algorithm for implementing an ISA system in a MATLAB®-Simulink playground. Thereafter, a MATLAB®-Simulink vehicle model was developed whose speed profiles were adapted depending on monitored weights and speeds using the modelled ISA system. The system was regulated to ensure that the gain in KE was limited to the set impact energy value relative to each sampled vehicle. It was observed that speed limits could be adjusted in real time based on estimated impact energy value so that tolerable collision severity is achieved. The Simulink model confirmed that vehicle speed adaptation is possible based on conserved KE and a set value of frontal impact energy. However, this is exclusively depended on relative vehicle weights with respect to the type of vehicles. These findings can be useful to road transport safety authorities and insurance agencies in assessing vehicle collision accidents. Besides, vehicle manufacturers can apply the proposed solutions in the design of speed control systems and frontal bumper structures.