Crashworthiness of bus structures and rollover protection

The paper gives a statistically based survey about the main categories of bus accidents and the major technical questions belonging to the design and construction of the body structure. General definition of the plastic hinges is given, the characteristics of which can be approached by mathematical functions having some basic parameters which depend on the geometrical and material properties of the tube or rod on which they take place. Experimental results are shown about plastic hinge characteristics. On the basis of the plastic hinge theory the front collision of buses are discussed. The rollover protection problem is discussed on the basis of the existing ECE Regulation 66. which is criticised either the test methods or the calculation method given in it. This criticism gives a starting point for the development of the regulation in the future.