A STUDY OF HEAVY-VEHICLE UNDERRIDE GUARDS
TWELVE FULL-SCALE TESTS HAVE BEEN PERFORMED TO INVESTIGATE THE UNDERRIDE PROBLEM AND TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SEVERAL SPECIFIC GUARD DESIGNS IN PREVEN- TING UNDERRIDE TYPE COLLISIONS. PARAMETERS STUDIED INCLUDE IMPACTING VEHICLE SIZE AND WEIGHT, IMPACT VELOCITY, UNDERRIDE GUARD GROUND CLEARANCE HEIGHT, RIGID AND YIELDING GUARDS, FRAME AND FRAMELESS (MONOCOQUE) TRAILER TARGET VEHICLES, AND SYMMETRICAL (ON-CENTER) IMPACTS. DATA OBTAINED FROM THESE TESTS INCLUDE DECELERATION OF THE IMPACTING AUTOMOBILES, LOADING EXPERIENCED BY THE UNDERRIDE GUARDS, AND HIGH-SPEED MOTION PICTURES OF THE COLLISION SEQUENCES. IN ADDITION TO THE EXPERIMENTAL EFFORT, MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF THE UNDERRIDE COLLISION WAS PERFORMED USING A SYSTEM OF DISCRETE MASSES AND SPRINGS TO REPRESENT THE IMPACTING CAR AND TRUCK UNDERRIDE GUARD. CRASH TEST DATA WERE USED TO DEFINE THE FORCE DEFLECTION PROPERTIES FOR THE VARIOUS SPRINGS REPRESENTING STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF THE AUTOMOBILE. SIMULATIONS WERE RUN FOR A SERIES OF UNDERRIDE GUARD FORCE MAGNITUDES AND WAVE FORMS TO EXAMINE THE EFFECTS OF UNDERRIDE GUARD FORCE CHARACTERISTICS ON THE IMPACTING VEHICLE. /HSL/
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Corporate Authors:
Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, Incorporated
4455 Genesee Street
Buffalo, NY United States 14221 -
Authors:
- DeLeys, N J
- Ryder, M O
- Publication Date: 1971
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Automobiles; Components; Crash tests; Crashes; Deceleration; Mathematical models; Motion pictures; Simulation; Size; Trucks; Underride guards; Underride override crashes; Vehicles; Velocity; Weight
- Subject Areas: Highways; Motor Carriers; Research; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 00221273
- Record Type: Publication
- Source Agency: Highway Safety Literature
- Report/Paper Numbers: 22 pp
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: May 26 1971 12:00AM