| Summary: | Safety is of paramount importance to manufacturers of roadway vehicles. Although in the past few years much progress has been made in the field of passenger safety in cars, there is still a strong need for the design of a more crashworthy vehicle in a frontal collision. Therefore, a vehicle crash test performance and how well the vehicle protects the front seat passengers in a head-on-collision is an essential part of the design of the vehicle. Over the past twelve years, the modeling of components and crash analysis of entire vehicles have become increasingly significant. In this thesis, a Ford Taurus model is analyzed in a frontal full-width and offset impact. This thesis describes the comparison of structural damage on a vehicle colliding with rigid pole as compared to the same vehicle model colliding with a barrier. The reason for selecting a rigid pole was to consider the worst-case scenario. The NHTSA has rules and regulations for barrier crashes; however it does not have any standards for pole crashes. In reality, there are many pole related vehicle crashes every year. Pole crashes involve vehicles colliding with utility and traffic light poles. Our purpose was to study the intrusion and injury values for the pole test and compare it with the barrier testing method of NHTSA. These simulations are carried under the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The simulations are obtained using LS-DYNA3D crash code. The rigid barrier, deformable barrier and pole are modeled in MSC/PATRAN. The accelerations at various points are recorded. The occupant compartment intrusions are compared between pole and barrier. Finally the responses of an occupant for the crash tests are studied in Mathematical Dynamical Models (MADYMO) by placing the dummy inside the dyna model. The dummy is placed in the car using extended coupling. A hybrid III 50th percentile male dummy model is used to study the occupant responses. The finite element shoulder and lap belts are modeled in MADYMO. The head accelerations are plotted and the HIC values are calculated. For the crash test the occupant foot injury during compartment intrusion is evaluated by calculating the tibia index and tibia forces. The barrier and the pole test results are compared and the results showed that the intrusions and injury values are more severe in the case of pole impact and in off-set crash there is a severe leg injury. === Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. === "December 2005."
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