Modeling and validation of guided impact test rig with friction

In the frontal crash test, femur load is one of the evaluation criteria for knee injury. In common practice this load will be measured in the crash test or sled test. A simple test rig has been developed to expedite the evaluation of the knee injury and can be conducted at any stage of the cockpit development. The virtual development in automotive has been growing rapidly has introduced the need for a simulation model of the test rig. This test rig has been designed to travel on the rail during impacting the cockpit. This Impact can be considered as guided and high speed impact (4m/s). The friction between the rail and the impactor contribute significant effect on the final result of the impact. The coefficient of friction acquired in quasi – static and generic value did not represent the real coefficient of friction at high speed. A simple method of combination between experiment and simulation has been introduced to acquire the coefficient of friction between the rail and the impactor. The coefficient of friction and test rig model accuracy was validated through comparison of the acceleration and load curves. Three cases of impact have been introduced to ensure the robustness of the model and variation of the cockpit angle. The cases were basic model, additional mass of test rig by 5.6 kg and the angular impact at 60 degree. The loading curves from the simulation are matching with the test for all cases. The difference of acceleration and load peaks are less than 5 percent between test and simulation.