Development of Mathematical Models for Analysis of a Vehicle Crash

Nowadays, each newly produced car must conform to the appropriate safety standards and norms. The most direct way to observe how a car behaves during a collision and to assess its crashworthiness is to perform a crash test. Because of the fact that vehicle crash tests are complex and complicated experiments it is advisable to establish their mathematical models. This paper contains an overview of the kinematic and dynamic relationships of a vehicle in a collision. There is also presented basic mathematical model representing a collision together with its analysis. The main part of this paper is devoted to methods of establishing parameters of the vehicle crash model and to real crash data investigation i.e. - creation of a Kelvin model for a real experiment, its analysis and validation. After model's parameters extraction a quick assessment of an occupant crash severity is done.