Pam-Crash is a software package from ESI Group used for crash simulation and the design of occupant safety systems, primarily in the automotive industry. The software enables automotive engineers to simulate the performance of a proposed vehicle design and evaluate the potential for injury to occupants in multiple crash scenarios.
The software originated in research aimed at simulating aerospace and nuclear applications. At a meeting organized by VDI (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure) in Stuttgart on May 30, 1978, ESI Group simulated the accidental crash of a military fighter plane into a nuclear power plant [1] German automobile manufacturers took note and tested the applicability of several emerging commercial crash simulation codes, including what would soon become Pam-Crash. This software's predecessor code simulated the frontal impact of a full passenger car structure in an overnight computer run. This was the first successful full-car crash simulation. [2]
Based on Finite element method (FEM), the software enables the modeling of complex geometry by offering different structural and continuum elements: beams, shells, membranes and solids. In a typical crash simulation, shells are used to model thin-walled metal, plastic and composite components. Beams and bars may also be used for stiffening frames, suspensions and special connections. The program offers a large range of linear and nonlinear materials including elastic and visco-plastic and including foam materials and multi-layers composites up to damage and failure models. [3] It was used in the first numerical simulation of a full vehicle rollover by BMW AG (Bayerische Motoren Werke AG). The program provided accurate determination of the structural deformations while the computationally economical rigid body simulation was used during the relatively unimportant deformation and free-flight phases of the simulation. [4]
PAM-CRASH is used on High Performance Computers including massively parallel systems. One of the most time-critical aspects of parallel simulation is the contact handling. Results with a 128-processor computer demonstrated that a contact search algorithm leads to a better scalability. [5] Engineers utilize crash simulation not only to determine the end result of the crash but also to view the step by step time history. Observing factors such as how the bumper is folded in the impact and what is the effect of rib thickness on body deformation in the initial stages of the simulation gives insights that improve crashworthiness of the design. [6]
Desktop Engineering magazine, in its review of ESI Group’s Virtual Performance Solution, which includes this software, said: “You work across multiple analysis domains with a single core model—not different models for every load case. This streamlines your workflow, saving time and money by reducing the number of individual solvers you have to deploy and all that model re-creation business.” [7]
Pam-Crash was used to design a steel floor pan structure to meet torsion and bending stiffness requirements while reducing its weight by 50% and the number of parts by 70%. [8]
In a different application, the software was dynamically coupled to the occupant safety program MADYMO. The study investigated the interaction of a Hybrid III crash dummy and a passive restraint system of an airbag and kneebolster in a frontal impact situation. Good agreement with experimental data was obtained. [9]
Researchers at the University of North Carolina and Mississippi State University simulated crash scenarios on a Chrysler Neon passenger vehicle using this program and LS-DYNA, another crash simulation code. The test data and simulation results correlated very well with only minor discrepancies in terms of overall impact deformation, component failure modes and velocity and acceleration at various locations on the vehicle. [10]
The software was used to evaluate safety issues at the Beryl Bravo offshore platform in the North Sea operated by ExxonMobil. It was used to perform numerical simulations of the dynamic response of the structure subjected to explosion scenarios. The program's computational models agreed with experimental results and were used to guide the process of designing new blast walls. [11]
The program is used by automobile manufacturers to improve their rankings in New Car Assessment Programs (NCAPs) used to assess the safety performance of competing automobile models. These programs include the Euro NCAP and Japan NCAP as well as a similar rating system provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). [12]
A simulation is an approximate imitation of the operation of a process or system; that represents its operation over time.
Crumple zones, crush zones, or crash zones, are a structural safety feature used in vehicles, mainly in automobiles, to increase the time over which a change in velocity occurs from the impact during a collision by controlled deformation; in recent years also incorporated into trains and railcars.
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Crashworthiness is the ability of a structure to protect its occupants during an impact. This is commonly tested when investigating the safety of aircraft and vehicles. Depending on the nature of the impact and the vehicle involved, different criteria are used to determine the crashworthiness of the structure. Crashworthiness may be assessed either prospectively, using computer models or experiments, or retrospectively by analyzing crash outcomes. Several criteria are used to assess crashworthiness prospectively, including the deformation patterns of the vehicle structure, the acceleration experienced by the vehicle during an impact, and the probability of injury predicted by human body models. Injury probability is defined using criteria, which are mechanical parameters that correlate with injury risk. A common injury criterion is the Head impact criterion (HIC). Crashworthiness is assessed retrospectively by analyzing injury risk in real-world crashes, often using regression or other statistical techniques to control for the myriad of confounders that are present in crashes.
A crash simulation is a virtual recreation of a destructive crash test of a car or a highway guard rail system using a computer simulation in order to examine the level of safety of the car and its occupants. Crash simulations are used by automakers during computer-aided engineering (CAE) analysis for crashworthiness in the computer-aided design (CAD) process of modelling new cars. During a crash simulation, the kinetic energy, or energy of motion, that a vehicle has before the impact is transformed into deformation energy, mostly by plastic deformation (plasticity) of the car body material, at the end of the impact.
Computational science and engineering (CSE) is a relatively new discipline that deals with the development and application of computational models and simulations, often coupled with high-performance computing, to solve complex physical problems arising in engineering analysis and design as well as natural phenomena. CSE has been described as the "third mode of discovery". In many fields, computer simulation is integral and therefore essential to business and research. Computer simulation provides the capability to enter fields that are either inaccessible to traditional experimentation or where carrying out traditional empirical inquiries is prohibitively expensive. CSE should neither be confused with pure computer science, nor with computer engineering, although a wide domain in the former is used in CSE and some problems in the latter can be modeled and solved with CSE methods.
MADYMO is a software package for the analysis of occupant safety systems in the automotive and transport industries. The software was developed by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and is owned and distributed by TASS International Software and Services, headquartered in Helmond, the Netherlands. By one author's estimation, "MADYMO is probably the most widely used multi-body system program for occupant safety systems."
Contact dynamics deals with the motion of multibody systems subjected to unilateral contacts and friction. Such systems are omnipresent in many multibody dynamics applications. Consider for example
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Charles Adrian Hobbs is a safety expert in vehicle crashworthiness with a background in accident and injury investigation, and analysis.