Measurement and assessment of passenger vehicle compatibility in front and side collisions

The goal of vehicle crash compatibility is the optimisation of vehicle designs to minimise the total number of injuries and fatalities that occur in all collisions in the accident environment. It is hence distinguished from traditional perceptions of occupant protection in that it requires vehicle designs to be optimised to protect other road users in addition to the vehicle's own occupants. This thesis defines a method to objectively assess the compatibility of a front-to-front or front-to-side collision between two passenger vehicles. The method is used to analyse accident statistics from the German In-Depth Accident Survey (GIDAS) database and for the assessment of front-to-front and front-to-side collision simulations. The simulations are used to investigate the effects of ideal horizontal and vertical structural homogeneity, and the findings of both the simulations and the accident analysis are combined to provide proposals for crash test procedures that assess a vehicle's compatibility.