A comparative analysis of three typical crash tests results based on small overlap frontal collision accidents

With the promotion of collision safety technical regulations, the vehicle safety technology has achieved a leap-forward development, and the occupants have been well protected in various collision conditions. However, the statistical data indicate that serious accidental casualties are still present in frontal collision traffic accidents with small overlap ratios. One of the main reasons is that vehicles in the small overlap collisions did not have the energy absorption effect of the longitudinal beams and body structure, causing serious deformation of the passenger compartment and injuries to the occupants. In this paper, the characteristics of small overlap accidents were analysed based on the China traffic accident database. Then, actual vehicle crash tests were carried out by adopting three typical small overlap crash test methods (vehicle-tovehicle test method, IIHS test method and NHTSA test method), and in-depth analysis was conducted on the vehicle kinematics, collision strength (vehicle body acceleration and vehicle pulse index), occupant injuries, and vehicle body deformation in the crash tests. The results show that although the incidence of small overlap crash is low, the ratio of AIS3+ injury is very high, and the NTHSA test method is more similar to the vehicle-to-vehicle test than the IIHS test method. © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.. All rights reserved.