Citation

Carvalho M, Ambrosio JAC. Int. J. Crashworthiness 2011; 16(5): 537-556.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13588265.2011.611398

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The multibody (MB) vehicle models, used in crash analysis, reduce calculation time by several orders of magnitude, when compared with the finite element models. The drawback of the use of MB models for crashworthiness is the cumbersome model development process and the difficulty of their validation. The uncertainty on the model development resides, mostly, on the constitutive behaviour of the plastic hinges typically used in the MB modelling approaches to structural design. By using an optimisation procedure based on the minimisation of the deviation between the observed response of the MB vehicle model and a reference response, the uncertainty on the plastic hinge functional characteristics is used as design variables. The proposed procedure is demonstrated by the identification of the MB model of a small city car suitable for side and frontal impact.