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3/4/2015 - Elio Motors Tech Talk V58 - Recent Frontal Crash Test Simulation

goofyone

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Elio Motors Tech Talk v58
tech_talk_header.jpg


Elio Motors, Together with Altair Engineering, Takes Another Step Forward

As part of the conception, development and launch of any new vehicle, automotive safety engineers perform a series of crash simulations to evaluate safety performance. These computer simulations provide valuable data in predicting the vehicle’s capability in absorbing the impact and protecting the occupant. It allows the engineering team to make adjustments to the vehicle prior to actual physical crash tests.

Elio Motors has the good fortune to work with Altair Engineering on our crash test simulations. Altair’s simulation tools are considered the gold-standard in the auto industry and are used by automakers around the world to gather important engineering information and make critical design changes.

Recently, Elio Motors and Altair made an important step in the crash testing process, simulating a belted occupant and driver airbag in a frontal crash. Previous crash simulations for the Elio were done with only the vehicle structure. The addition of the simulated occupant, airbag and belts helped the engineering team understand the predicted occupant kinematics for a given crash pulse, make design changes and reevaluate to support achieving safety performance requirements. A crash pulse is a time-history signature of a vehicle collision event and its characteristics such as shape, peak acceleration and duration influence occupant safety.

In engineering parlance, this model is referred to as the Full Vehicle Model with Restraints and Crash Dummy. The crash dummy is the Hybrid III 50th percentile anthropomorphic test device (ATD) that is the most commonly used worldwide (and required by Federal regulation in the US) for frontal impact testing and simulation. The Hybrid III standard crash dummy approximates an average North American male, about 5’9” tall and weighing approximately 172 lbs.

One of the keys to good occupant safety performance is how the crash energy is being managed. This is done using an engineering design element called a “crush zone.” An effective crush zone is an area of the frame that is designed to crush/collapse/stack or deform in a controlled manner so that the structure will absorb as much of the impact energy as possible. The Elio’s front rails are designed with effective crush zones to manage the impact energy and allow the occupant restraint system to perform well. The front rails can be tuned through design, crush initiators and reinforcements to give the ideal crash pulse for enhanced occupant safety.


iso_side_final_small.gif


iso_front_final_small.gif


The other key to occupant safety is restraints optimization. This is the process of ensuring the seatbelt and airbags work together in terms of belt payout (the amount of travel in the belt and occupant movement during a crash event), airbag deployment timing and airbag venting to cushion the occupant during an impact event.

In addition to energy management, it is critical that the structure be strong to prevent intrusion into the occupant compartment. The Elio is designed using a spaceframe architecture, which utilizes a set of tubular steel struts, custom fitted and arranged in straight or curved geometric patterns for shape and/or strength. Optimally positioned, the struts will promote the greatest rigidity in structure for three-dimensional load-bearing points. The sturdy spaceframe construction along with the use of advanced high strength steels (i.e. Martensite, Boron and High Strength Low Alloy steels), provides enhanced structural strength to minimize intrusion into the occupant compartment during an impact.

Altair has used computer simulations extensively to predict safety performance for the major automakers. These simulations are well understood in the industry and correlations with real world testing have been established. The current simulation run was to establish a baseline safety performance for the Elio. This will serve as a starting point for Altair to make refinements to the spaceframe and restraint systems to improve the overall safety performance. Once the spaceframe and restraint systems have been optimized through simulations, physical crash tests will be performed as a further validation.

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http://www.eliomotors.com/tech-talk-v58-recent-frontal-crash-test-simulation/
 

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Bilbo B

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This certainly counts as progress in my book. I was kind of hoping they'd put the shoulder strap on the right shoulder. I've yet to see a self retracting seatbelt that worked every time. They always end up hanging out the bottom of the door when the car is parked, in the elements. On the right side, it would just coil up on the floor.

Not sure if this will help with the "It's not safe" crowd or not. Given the people I saw when the Elio was in Chicagoland, 172 pounds is probably a bit light for the driver. :rolleyes:
 

John Painter

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Elio Motors Tech Talk v58
tech_talk_header.jpg


Elio Motors, Together with Altair Engineering, Takes Another Step Forward

As part of the conception, development and launch of any new vehicle, automotive safety engineers perform a series of crash simulations to evaluate safety performance. These computer simulations provide valuable data in predicting the vehicle’s capability in absorbing the impact and protecting the occupant. It allows the engineering team to make adjustments to the vehicle prior to actual physical crash tests.

Elio Motors has the good fortune to work with Altair Engineering on our crash test simulations. Altair’s simulation tools are considered the gold-standard in the auto industry and are used by automakers around the world to gather important engineering information and make critical design changes.

Recently, Elio Motors and Altair made an important step in the crash testing process, simulating a belted occupant and driver airbag in a frontal crash. Previous crash simulations for the Elio were done with only the vehicle structure. The addition of the simulated occupant, airbag and belts helped the engineering team understand the predicted occupant kinematics for a given crash pulse, make design changes and reevaluate to support achieving safety performance requirements. A crash pulse is a time-history signature of a vehicle collision event and its characteristics such as shape, peak acceleration and duration influence occupant safety.

In engineering parlance, this model is referred to as the Full Vehicle Model with Restraints and Crash Dummy. The crash dummy is the Hybrid III 50th percentile anthropomorphic test device (ATD) that is the most commonly used worldwide (and required by Federal regulation in the US) for frontal impact testing and simulation. The Hybrid III standard crash dummy approximates an average North American male, about 5’9” tall and weighing approximately 172 lbs.

One of the keys to good occupant safety performance is how the crash energy is being managed. This is done using an engineering design element called a “crush zone.” An effective crush zone is an area of the frame that is designed to crush/collapse/stack or deform in a controlled manner so that the structure will absorb as much of the impact energy as possible. The Elio’s front rails are designed with effective crush zones to manage the impact energy and allow the occupant restraint system to perform well. The front rails can be tuned through design, crush initiators and reinforcements to give the ideal crash pulse for enhanced occupant safety.


iso_side_final_small.gif


iso_front_final_small.gif


The other key to occupant safety is restraints optimization. This is the process of ensuring the seatbelt and airbags work together in terms of belt payout (the amount of travel in the belt and occupant movement during a crash event), airbag deployment timing and airbag venting to cushion the occupant during an impact event.

In addition to energy management, it is critical that the structure be strong to prevent intrusion into the occupant compartment. The Elio is designed using a spaceframe architecture, which utilizes a set of tubular steel struts, custom fitted and arranged in straight or curved geometric patterns for shape and/or strength. Optimally positioned, the struts will promote the greatest rigidity in structure for three-dimensional load-bearing points. The sturdy spaceframe construction along with the use of advanced high strength steels (i.e. Martensite, Boron and High Strength Low Alloy steels), provides enhanced structural strength to minimize intrusion into the occupant compartment during an impact.

Altair has used computer simulations extensively to predict safety performance for the major automakers. These simulations are well understood in the industry and correlations with real world testing have been established. The current simulation run was to establish a baseline safety performance for the Elio. This will serve as a starting point for Altair to make refinements to the spaceframe and restraint systems to improve the overall safety performance. Once the spaceframe and restraint systems have been optimized through simulations, physical crash tests will be performed as a further validation.

[Broken External Image]

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While I understand from Joel Sheltrown after connecting with him two weeks ago that the crash simulations are actually acceptable for NHTSA, it seems from this update Elio is clearly going to do actual crash tests. Not understanding much about the actual test or simulations, does anyone here know what they're looking at? Does this look reasonably good?
 

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Ryan

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Here are the animations from EM's 3/5 Tech Talk, and I captured the first frame of each to make it easier to study them for interesting technical details. The main things that pop out at me are:
1. Sway bar is now apparent.
2. Air intake & filter housing
3. Several small construction changes to chassis
4. It looks like the upper A-arms are now partly filled in. Possibly drag reduction?
o5go7iu.gif

w7HQcUJ.gif

VSyV0Q0.jpg

0OEDAHs.jpg
 
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goofyone

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While I understand from Joel Sheltrown after connecting with him two weeks ago that the crash simulations are actually acceptable for NHTSA, it seems from this update Elio is clearly going to do actual crash tests. Not understanding much about the actual test or simulations, does anyone here know what they're looking at? Does this look reasonably good?

The NHTSA does not have the budget to test every vehicle themselves so they do accept physical crash test data of testing performed to NHTSA specs from certified test labs and in more recent times they even accept crash simulations from approved certified sources. It is highly likely that Altair Engineering is one of these approved sources. The NHTSA keeps manufacturers honest by randomly selecting a number of vehicle models each year for their own testing in which the NHTSA goes out and purchases random sample vehicles from dealer showrooms and puts these vehicles through the standard crash testing program.

As far as I know Elio Motors has said all along that they plan on running a physical crash testing program on these vehicles to demonstrate that they do indeed meet car safety standards for occupant protection. Occupant safety equivalent to that of cars is a big part of the EM marketing strategy so this testing will likely eventually be used to reassure mass market buyers that these vehicles are indeed a safe alternative to a traditional car.

In reality these moving images are mostly just cool to look at as the important data is really the movement of the occupants. Other than design issues, which result in issues such as occupant safety shell failure and/or foreign object intrusions into the cabin, the real safety data is in the details of how deceleration of the occupants is managed and controlled. The point of most modern occupant safety system designs is to keep the occupants within a small defined area, via the use of inertial locking mechanisms in seat-belts as well as airbags. As the position and movement of the occupants is known it is then easier to limit the g-force load on the occupants using muti-stage airbags, bumpers, crumple zones, and/or engineered vehicle movement.
 
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