Performance of triangle method for evaluating energy loss in vehicle collisions

Abstract

The present study is aimed at the validation of the triangle method for evaluating energy loss in vehicle collisions. The validation of the method is performed under two different points of view: first, the ability of the method to provide correct energy loss values; this was done by comparing the method results to experimental and numerical crash tests; and second, the ability of the method to produce results with a low scatter, due to the uncertainty in input data; this was done by performing a sensitivity analysis. It is clearly demonstrated that the triangle method can be used to evaluating energy losses involved in car crashes.