Computer modelling of vehicle rollover crash tests conducted with the UNSW Jordan Rollover System

ABSTRACT

Vehicle rollovers are one of the least forgiving crash modes with one of the highest occupant fatality and serious-injury rates. A detailed understanding of the mechanisms associated to injuries resulting from vehicle rollovers is essential for the development of effective occupant-protection countermeasures during a rollover. Crash testing devices such as the Jordan Rollover System (JRS) recently have been used for investigating vehicle rollovers within a testing environment. Computer simulations of such rollover crash tests would provide a valuable support by allowing to greatly reduce the number of tests otherwise necessary for identifying the most critical test conditions as well as conducting comprehensive parametric studies. This paper describes a modelling effort to simulate vehicle rollover crash testing conducted with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) JRS, which is an improved version of the original JRS. A detailed finite element (FE) model of the UNSW JRS was coupled with FE models of both a small passenger car and a sport utility vehicle. Relevant physical phenomena that have to be modelled for successfully simulating such complex testing were initially identified. Both modelled configurations were validated against experimental rollover tests performed with the corresponding vehicle and proved to be capable of replicating the actual vehicle dynamics and deformations. Such developed FE model will be a useful tool for detailed investigations of vehicle rollover crash tests conducted with the UNSW JRS.

KEYWORDS:

• Vehicle rollovers
• crashworthiness
• dynamic rollover test devices
• Jordan Rollover System
• finite element modelling
• LS-DYNA

Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to Dr. Fadi Tahan, from George Mason University, for providing the initial FE model of the SUV and the JRS cradle. The authors would also like to acknowledge the staff at the Transport for New South Wales Crashlab for the set-up and execution of the tests with the UNSW JRS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was completed under the Dynamic Rollover Protection (DROP) Project, which is funded under the Australian Research Council and Partner Linkage Project LP110100069 together with funding from the following industry partners: Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute (KATRI), Centre for Road Safety at Transport for New South Wales, Victorian state government's third party insurer Transport Accident Commission (TAC), West Australian (WA) state government's Office of Road Safety at Main Roads WA, BHP Billiton Ltd, and US Center for Injury Research (CFIR)