Truck frontal underride protection - compatibility factors influencing passenger car safety

Frontal collisions between passenger cars and trucks are the severest vehicle-to-vehicle collisions observed in accident statistics. Regulation 93 was developed to reduce the risk of fatal injury by preventing passenger cars from underriding heavy truck structures. The regulation does not fully address the higher energy of content in these collisions where passenger car structures cannot be expected to have sufficient energy-absorbing capacity. The performance of a front underrun protective device (FUPD) incorporated into a finite element truck model was evaluated and compared with earlier studies by the authors. In particular, structural interaction of the car with the truck structures was investigated. The packing of the FUPD and truck structures was a critical factor for the FUPD performance. It was found that when the vertical offset between the FUPD and truck frame rails is too small, the efficiency of the FUPD is decreased. Incorporating deformable truck frame elements is only beneficial if the offset is at least 220 mm.