Mathematical models for assessment of vehicle crashworthiness: a review

This article reviews approaches to mathematical modeling of a vehicle crash. The growing focus on vehicle and occupant safety in car crashes has triggered the need to study vehicle crashworthiness in the initial stages of vehicle development. The major motivation for this work is to support vehicle crashworthiness design during the product development process.The article is divided into two parts; the first one overviews existing mathematical models used to solve engineering problems. The second part describes modeling strategies applied for replicating non-linear vehicle crash event and occupant kinematics in an occupant protection loadcase. We also highlight alternative modeling strategies using hybrid modeling techniques aimed at the improvement of the vehicle development process.