Engineering assessment on the utility of vehicle frontal protective guards and their aggressiveness in vehicle collisions

The most difficult load estimation occurs with impacts due to its complicated nature of involving energy transfer, elastic/plastic deformations, and stress wave propagation. This complicated nature inherently makes the engineering analysis and design of mechanical components, structures and machines that involve impact and shock loading at best difficult to perform. The first part of research is the development of FEA modeling techniques for impact scenarios. Impact problems that had been previously analyzed by the traditional dynamics impact analysis or experimentally analyzed are modeled, ran, and remodeled until satisfactory agreement is obtained with theory or experimental results. Notes, on element types, material constitutes time step size along with contact parameters such as area, stiffness and distance are noted and documented for future guidance for impact modeling.; An impact problem that is occurring with increasing frequencies in North America is vehicle/large game contacts at highway speeds. In Kansas alone, roughly 10,000 vehicle/deer contacts occur per annum. These contacts pose both injuries to occupants and economic loss. For the commercial vehicles, two known manufacturers have frontal protection guards that are claimed to prevent heat exchanger damage due to a large animal strike. Use of these commercial guards will likely be increasing to stop deer strike damage. In addition, aftermarket consumer style guards are popular with SUV owners. The second part of this research is to determine the effectiveness against vehicle damage for both the commercial and consumer guards to a deer impact at highway speeds.; As many consumer frontal guards are in use and more commercial guards will be used, the third part of this research is novel by examining whether or not aggressiveness or collision severity increases with the use of frontal protection guards when attached to a vehicle impacting another vehicle.; The forth part of this research in novel by examining how the parameters of the striking velocity along with the frontal protection guard stiffness relate to the struck passenger vehicle's acceleration and guard intrusion, when side impacted by a consumer guard.