Energy Absorption Study on Drive Cab of an Intercity Coach in Frontal Impact Analysis

Investigation of major safety accidents occurred from April to June in 2010 in China shows that occupants of coach & bus have been injured more seriously. In order to analyze the passenger safety of front body structure for coach & bus, a finite element model of a body-over-frame coach was built. Front crash analysis of the structure of a bus front body was performed according to the ECE R29-2005 protection of the occupants of the cab of commercial vehicles of European regulation requirements, GB11551-2003 the protection of the occupant in the event of a frontal collision for passenger car of china regulation requirements, and the strength of the bus structure was checked whether the safety requirements are satisfied. The nonlinear explicit finite element code LS-DYNA was used to improve the frontal crash safety as impact velocity was 30km/h. The crashworthiness and perfection of drive cab in front impact was studied and compared by taking into account crush variables, which include guide-side-door deformation, drive-side-door deformation and the frame deformation of drive cab floor. The results indicated that it is necessary to optimize the front absorbing components of bus to improve the protection level of passenger and the crashworthiness of drive cab, and front dynamic crash analysis simulated clearly in the real world accidents.