Vehicle Mechanics of Intersection Collision Impact 700177

There are two phases in automobile collisions, namely, the impace phase, which is treated in this paper, and the after-collision phase. As indicated by full-scale experiments in unidirectional collisions, and as confirmed by similitude model study in side impact collisions, vehicles behave as rigid bodies in both impact and after-collision phases. With this confirmation, the analyses of seemingly complex intersection automobile collision phenomena become possible by application of two-dimensional impact theories which are primarily based on the momentum-impulse principle of rigid bodies. Available full-scale intersection experiments indicate the numerical range of the coefficient of restitution and the coefficient of friction between two vehicle bodies in collision.