Citation

Russell CG. Collision 2006; 1(2): 12-18.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Collision Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Principle Direction of Force: In the confines of collision reconstruction, the PDOF is used to describe the direction of the force that was applied to the vehicle during the collision. The pdof is measured relative to the direction the center mass was traveling on impact, typically along the longitudinal axis of the vehicle for which the PDOF is being determined. When using this convention, the longitudinal axis (running front-to-rear) is such that an angle of 0-degrees is at the front of the vehicle while the angle of 180-degrees is to the rear. When the PDOF angle is expressed as a positive number it identifies a pdof that intersects the longitudinal axis from the right, while a PDOF expressed as a negative number identifies an angle intersecting the longitudinal axis from the left. However, it is import to note, without additional analysis, there is no significance whether the angle returned by the PDOF equation is either positive or negative