Experimental and Numerical Impact Assessment of a Heavy-Duty Truck Cab Reconstructed from 3D Scanning According to the Swedish VVFS 2003:29 Procedure

Ensuring the crashworthiness of heavy-duty truck cabs is essential for reducing occupant fatalities and improving passive safety in commercial vehicles. Regulatory frameworks such as UNECE Regulation No. 29 (R29) define structural integrity requirements through full-scale destructive impact tests, which are costly and limit iterative design. In this study, an integrated experimental–numerical methodology is presented for the impact assessment of a real Iveco Eurocargo 120E18 truck cab reconstructed using high-resolution 3D scanning. The scanned geometry was used to generate a dimensionally accurate CAD model of the load-bearing cab structure, which was analysed using explicit finite element simulations in ANSYS Academic Mechanical and CFD Teaching package under impact conditions compliant with UNECE R29 and implemented according to the Swedish regulation VVFS 2003:29. In parallel, a full-scale physical pendulum impact test was performed on the same cab using a cylindrical impactor with a diameter of 580 mm, a length of 1800 mm, and a mass of approximately 1000 kg, impacting the upper region of the A-pillar. The experimental setup was instrumented using high-speed optical measurements and an accelerometer to capture impact kinematics and structural response. The numerical predictions showed good agreement with experimental results in terms of acceleration–time histories, absorbed energy evolution, and structural deformation, with differences generally below 6%. Critical regions susceptible to local buckling and plastic collapse were consistently identified in both approaches, while preservation of the driver survival space was confirmed. The results demonstrate that scan-based finite element models, when properly calibrated and validated, can reliably reproduce certification-level impact behaviour. The proposed workflow provides a robust and cost-effective framework for regulatory pre-validation, structural optimisation, and digitalisation of crashworthiness assessment for heavy-duty truck cabs.