A Simulation Environment for Field Relevant Rollover Accidents

Abstract

To raise the occupant's and vehicle's safety in traffic, the automotive industry develops more and more safety systems which should assist the driver and protect the occupants, respectively. For the development and the improvement of these systems, a large number of accident scenarios have to be analyzed in respect of the influence of such systems to the accident. Since the vehicle rollover is amongst the most dangerous accident and responsible or serious injuries or even fatal cases, this scenario has to be investigated and analyzed for the development of so-called passive safety systems, like airbags, belt pretensioners and rollover bars, with the help of computer simulations. Therefore, the vehicle dynamic has to be mapped. A special focus of this paper is on the modeling of the ground contact during the touching of the vehicle underbody in case of embankment maneuvers. Therefore, detailed contact models are developed. Simulation results with and without consideration of the ground contact are compared