• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.53-62
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• 2010

An airbag is composed of housing assembly, door assembly, cushion assembly, and an inflator. The inflator is the essential part that generates gas for airbag. When an airbag is activated, it effectively absorbs the crash energy of the passenger by inflating a cushion. In this study, tank tests were performed with newly synthesized propellants with various compositions, and the results are compared with the numerical results. In the simulation of inflator, a zonal model has been adopted which consisted of four zones of flow regions: combustion chamber, filter, gas plenum, and discharge tank. Each zone was described by the conservation equations with specified constitutive relations for gas. The pressure and temperature of each zone of the inflator were calculated and analyzed and the results were compared with the tank test data. In the zone of discharge tank the pressure quickly rose, the pattern of pressure curve was very similar to the pressure curve of real test. And in zone 1 & 2 & 3 the mass of products was increased and decreased with time. In zone 4, the mass of products was increased with time like real inflator. From the similarity of pressure curve in zone 4 and closed bomb calculation the modeled results are well correlated with the experimental values.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.220-225
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• 2000

This paper develops a finite element model for studying occupant behavior of a mid-size truck equipped with a driver side airbag. The developed model simulates an occupant behavior using PAM-CRASH/PAM-SAFE in super computer SP2. The model is developed based on a sled test. A 50% hybrid dummy III is used for measuring head and chest accelerations and femur loads, and major injury coefficients such as HIC, CA and femur load. Inferior components such as foot rest, seat, kneebolster, crash pad, etc. are roughly modeled and defined by a rigid material model. And contact type II is used for detecting a contact with dummy. Contact type II definition uses force-deflection relationship of each body Such components as steering column which directly affect on the occupant injuy are modeled in detail and defined by an elastic-plastic material model. Airbag cushion is modeled using rivet elements. Airbag cover groove is modeled using rivet elements. Airbag tether is modeled as nonlinear bar elements. Airbag model has two vent holes to ventilating the exploded gas. Airbag is folded close to the real airbag folding procedure, and folded cautiously in order not to have initial penetration. A vehicle pulse acquired from 31mph frontal barrier test is used as input signal for the simulation. The simulation conditions are tuned to the sled test ones. The measured dummy accelerations and major injury coefficients, and filmed dummy behavior and airbag inflation process using high speed camera are compared to the simulation results to verify the developed finite element model.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.12-20
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• 2024

Side impact with MDB (moving deformable barrier) is common in side crash test protocols around the globe, most of which are quite similar to that of US NCAP side impact protocol but IIHS side impact protocol is considered to be the most harsh one due to the MDB's weight and impact speed. In this study US NCAP side impact and IIHS side impact test conditions are compared with respect to delta-V (impulse of the test vehicle), roll speed, and yaw speed as well as survival space (the smallest distance between the front driver seat cushion center to B pillar after the test). Error factors (friction between tire and ground, tolerance of vertical and longitudinal position of the MDB with respect to the test vehicle), which are resident in the test protocol is studied with respect to the global vehicle behavior (delta-V, roll, yaw) as well as survival space.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.165-183
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• 2022

Most transportation departments have recognized and developed procedures to address the ever-increasing weights of trucks traveling on bridges in a service today. Transportation agencies also recognize the issues with overheight vehicles' collisions with bridges, but few stakeholders have definitive countermeasures. Bridges are becoming more vulnerable to collisions from overheight vehicles. The exact response under lateral impact force is difficult to predict. In this paper, nonlinear impact analysis shows that the degree of deformation recorded through the modeling of the unprotected vehicle-girder model provides realistic results compared to the observation from the US-61 bridge overheight vehicle impact. The predicted displacements are 0.229 m, 0.161 m, and 0.271 m in the girder bottom flange (lateral), bottom flange (vertical), and web (lateral) deformations, respectively, due to a truck traveling at 112.65 km/h. With such large deformations, the integrity of an impacted bridge becomes jeopardized, which in most cases requires closing the bridge for safety reasons and a need for rehabilitation. We proposed different sacrificial cushion systems to dissipate the energy of an overheight vehicle impact. The goal was to design and tune a suitable energy absorbing system that can protect the bridge and possibly reduce stresses in the overheight vehicle, minimizing the consequences of an impact. A material representing a Sorbothane high impact rubber was chosen and modeled in ANSYS. Out of three sacrificial schemes, a sandwich system is the best in protecting both the bridge and the overheight vehicle. The mitigation system reduced the lateral deflection in the bottom flange by 89%. The system decreased the stresses in the bridge girder and the top portion of the vehicle by 82% and 25%, respectively. The results reveal the capability of the proposed sacrificial system as an effective mitigation system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.381-393
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• 2001

The current traffic situation in Korea can be described as rapid change in traffic volume and diversity in vehicle size from compact cars to large trucks. W-beam barrier most widely used in Korea was found not to satisfy the stiffness requirement for the Koran impact condition of 14 ton-60Km/h-15deg. and it was too stiff for small vehicles impacting with more realistic speed to satisfy the safety of vehicle occupants. To develop a guardrail system satisfying the two contradicting goals, a thrie-beam guardrail system, which had the beam thickness of 3.2mm and rubber cushions, was conceived. Even though the height of the thrie-beam(450mm) is increased by 100mm as compared to that of W-beam (350mm), there was only 2% increase in the weight of the thrie-beam. The new thrie-beam barrier system could contain more wide range of vehicle bumper heights, and showed better performance in the viewpoint of stiffness and energy absorbing capability than the W-beam system. The impact performance was evaluated from a crash test. The developed thrie-beam guardrail system satisfied all applicable criteria for NCHRP 350 test designation 3-10.