CRUMPLE ZONE MODELLING OF PASSENGER VEHICLE USING MULTIPLE KELVIN MODEL AND OPTIMIZED WITH PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION

This paper presents the mathematical modelling of a vehicle crash system using a mass-spring-damper approach to simulate the behavior of a real vehicle during a frontal impact. A Multiple Kelvin model is developed to represent a real vehicle crash situation where the impact is introduced on the frontal vehicle body. The modelling process of Multiple Kelvin model is based on a single Kelvin model that developed into a set of seven mass-spring-damper systems representing the front crumple zone of a real vehicle. The model is then optimized for the parameters k and c using an optimization method namely Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm in MATLAB-Simulink. The simulation results demonstrate deformation and acceleration responses closely follow the previous experimental results where the parameters namely Ni, Np, and iw are varied to enhance the model's precision through the calculation of error of 12.15 using parameters Ni = 80, Np = 40 and iw = 0.9.