DECELERATION AND DEFORMATION DURING DYNAMIC LOADINGOF MODEL CAR BODY PARTS AFTER POST-ACCIDENT REPAIR

Absorption of impact energy by the passive safety elements of the vehicle body is the basic feature to ensure conditions ofsafety for the driver and passengers intransport. The parts especially designed for this objective in the self-supporting car body are longitudinals. Their energy-absorbing features are designed in different ways. Evaluation of the degree to which the vehicle (body) ensures safety during a collision is difficult and expensive. Usually, testsunder impact conditions are required. The most advanced and costly are the tests carried out on a complete vehicle (whole real object for tests). Whole vehicle testing can be replaced by testing of individual car body elements (for example longitudinal).The main aim of this article is to present and compare the results of dynamic studies on model energy-consuming objects (new model longitudinals and model longitudinals repaired with welding methods). For the purpose of this study, modelsof vehicle passive safety elements (model longitudinals) were designed.On the basis of the conducted tests, it was found that it is worth considering the replacement of collision tests of the whole vehicle by tests of its individual components.This can be considereda new approach that is not widely used. Currently, most often,crash tests of entire vehicles are conducted (high costs) or computer simulations are performed (often with unsatisfactory accuracy).