Possibilities to evaluate the vehicle pre-collision travel velocity in the case of a frontal impact with a fixed object, through numerical modelling

Abstract The present paper evaluates, from a physical-mathematical perspective, the pre-collision travel speed of a vehicle, in the case of a frontal impact with a rigid, fixed pole-type obstacle. The evaluation considers both energy methods and deformation coefficients, taking into account the parameters resulting from the primary investigation of the accident site. The reconstruction of such road accidents aims to determine the kinematic parameters that influence the behavior of the involved vehicle, and to allow the analysis of avoidance possibilities of such events. The developed working algorithm can be applied to solve a large number of road accident cases by changing the input data and to obtain the necessary kinematic and dynamic parameters for the accident reconstruction process. Thus, it is possible to establish the dynamics of such road traffic events, which facilitates the assessment and comparison of different conditions under study. The validation of the fore-mentioned reconstruction algorithm is performed by comparing the results obtained through numerical modelling with those determined experimentally. The relative error between the two is, as well, assessed.