Compatibility: Causes, constraints, improvements and evaluation proposal

摘要

Accident studies conducted during the last twenty-five years clearly show that car-to-car head-on collision is a major impact configuration to take into account in order to improve safety on the roads. With new self-protection ratings all cars offer equivalent behavior against a fixed obstacle. So, in the future, the main progress will have to be made in car-to-car compatibility. Recent studies have shown the feasibility of designing compatible cars for both structure behavior and occupant protection. However, some requirements on front unit design could make this aim more difficult to achieve. We suggest developing a more comprehensive approach in order to better take into account all the constraints. In addition, to improve car-to-car compatibility, we propose: first, to create homogeneous front ends to avoid energy deficiency and then, to control the crush force level of vehicles by both enforcing a minimum resistance of the passenger compartment and putting under control the energy absorption of the front unit of the car. A testing procedure against deformable barrier is also proposed and presented to verify the aggressiveness level of the front unit.