CRASHWORTHINESS SIMULATIONS COMPARING PAM-CRASH AND LS-DYNA. IN: CAE METHODS FOR VEHICLE CRASHWORTHINESS AND OCCUPANT SAFETY, AND SAFETY-CRITICAL SYSTEMS

Finite element (FE) models of vehicles have been increasingly used in component design and crashworthiness evaluation. As vehicle FE models are becoming more sophisticated in terms of their accuracy, robustness, fidelity, and size, the need to compare different FEA codes has become more apparent. In this paper, FE simulations of a 1996 Dodge Neon are compared using LS-DYNA and PAM-CRASH codes in an effort to keep sameness of the material models, meshes, and boundary conditions. The original Neon mesh and material properties were developed at the FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) for LS-DYNA and subsequently modified for this study. The comparisons between test data and simulation results of the full-scale vehicle in terms of overall impact deformation, component failure modes, and velocity and acceleration at various locations in the vehicle show good correlations with only minor discrepancies.