Review and Analysis of Technical Designs of Rear Underrun Protective Devices (RUPDs) in Terms of Regulatory Compliance

Abstract

The Rear Underrun Protective Device (RUPD) is a basic means to prevent a passenger car from running under the rear of a motor truck (also referred to as heavy goods vehicle or HGV) or a trailer in the case of a rear-end collision and thus to reduce deformations of the car’s passenger compartment (“survival space”). In many publications dealing with such devices, the increasing of RUPD stiffness by applying innovative design solutions or using high-strength materials has been considered; in some designs, additional RUPD components are introduced to absorb the impact energy. In this paper, a review of the RUPD designs is presented and some of them are analyzed, where their characteristics that are essential for the compliance with normative market requirements are indicated. Results of the authors’ research on the selection of an energy absorber incorporated in the rear impact guard bar of an HGV are presented as well.

Assessment of the vehicle body side stiffness influence on the process of hazard generating in front-to-side vehicles’ collision

“…where: 𝑚 𝑠vehicle mass; 𝒓 𝒔vector from the origin of the global coordinate system to the centre of mass Cs in the global coordinate system {𝑂}; 𝒓 𝒔 = [ 𝑥 𝑠 𝑦 𝑠 𝑧 𝑠 ] 𝑇 (cf. The lacking data for modelling was obtained in the process of model parameterization using the trivial method and on the basis of the analysis of the other experimental studies carried out results, for example, by NHTSA [24] and also [25][26][27]. On their basis, the parameters describing the energy-consuming properties of the front-end part of the vehicle body, necessary to determine the impact force 𝑭 𝑫𝒔 , were…”