Recommendations for a Revised Specification for the EEVC Mobile Deformable Barrier Face

The European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee (EEVC) developed a side impact test procedure, during the 1970s, which involved the use of a mobile deformable barrier (MDB). The deformable element of this barrier was defined in terms of the force-deflection characteristics when impacting a six element load cell wall together with some dimensional requirements. The detailed design for the barrier face was not specified in the interests of allowing design freedom and hence novel designs to emerge. When this EEVC test procedure was used as the basis for ECE Regulation 95 (and the equivalent EU Directive), this ‘performance’ specification was also adopted. Experience with testing to this Regulation has exposed problems experienced by some automobile manufacturers due to the differing behaviour of different side impact MDB faces. Different designs that claim to meet the dynamic performance required by the Directive and Regulation can result in different behaviour of cars when tested in the full scale test. To try to resolve these difficulties, EEVC evaluated the whole range of MDB faces available to this specification to try to find methods for reducing this variability in performance when testing vehicles. Following this Evaluation Programme, EEVC recommended moving to a single specified design of MDB face to improve consistency, repeatability and reproducibility. EEVC WG13 recommended a design based on the principles of the AFL progress barrier face and produced a draft Specification in collaboration with the main MDB face manufacturers. This was presented to GRSP in December 2000. EEVC believed that it would be advisable to validate the proposed design standard before it could be recommended for adoption in ECE Regulation 95. A small validation programme was undertaken to assess whether MDB faces produced by several MDB face manufacturers to the same design specification would behave in a more repeatable and reproducible manner. The results have shown that this design specification results in MDB faces that are far more repeatable and reproducible than the original performance specification. However, the Validation Programme has shown some phenomena that demonstrated that the specification could be improved. As a result of this analysis, some modifications to the original draft design specification have been made and the revised specification is offered as a possible replacement for the existing specification. This Design Specification is considered by EEVC to provide significantly improved repeatability, reproducibility and reliability.

• Record URL:
  • http://eevc.kss-kompendium.de/fileuploads/server/php/?file=EEVC_MDB_Valid_Prog_Final_Report_web_version.pdf&download=1
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Department for Transport, England

  Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street
  London,   England  SW1P 4DR
• Publication Date: 2001-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 35p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobiles; Crash tests; Design; Highway safety; Performance; Recommendations; Reliability; Specifications; Traffic safety; Vehicle safety; Vehicle tests
• Identifier Terms: European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee
• Uncontrolled Terms: Mobile deformable barrier face; Repeatability; Reproducibility
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01001420
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 29 2005 1:55PM