Side Impact Dummy for Automotive Crash Tests Generated by TrueGrid

By DE Editors

The automotive industry throughout the world uses anthropomorphic dummies to determine passenger injuries in car crash tests. These tests are simulated with finite element analysis (FEA) in which the cars and the dummies are modeled in great detail.

  This Side Impact Dummy (SID) is an example of such a dummy. The model has 419000 nodes, 318000 elements, and 304 parts. It was generated with TrueGrid from XYZ Scientific Applications in Livermore, Calif.,  using 189 parts some of which are reflected about the dummy center plane. For example the arms and legs are generated only once and then copied and reflected.

  The outer surfaces of the skin parts are the only geometry that was imported into TrueGrid (in IGES form) to generate these parts. The rest of the parts were generated within TrueGrid from piece part paper mechanical drawings.

  The biggest challenge was to position all the parts into the correct relative position within the dummy. This task was simplified using the multiple level transform functions that are inherent in TrueGrid. For example, the lower leg parts and the upper leg parts are each generated at the origin and then positioned relative to each other. The leg is then positioned relative to the pelvis and is finally copied and reflected about the symmetry plane. Finally, the task of selectively merging nodes between the 189 parts is a major task made simple in TrueGrid.

  This FEM dummy model was provided courtesy of Livermore Software Technology Corporation (LSTC ). A number of other FEM dummies used in the automotive industry are also available from LSTC.