Rear Impact and Side Intrusion of Two Wheeler with a Bus

Praveen Kumar.Y Dr.Vinod Banthia Dr. Badarinath Ambati

M.Sc. (Engg) Student Professor-Automotive Engg. Director - Software Development
M. S. Ramaiah School of Centre Altair Engineering India Pvt. Ltd.
Advanced Studies M. S. Ramaiah School of Bangalore-560 103
Bangalore - 560 054 Advanced Studies
Bangalore - 560 054

Key Words: Motorcycle, Bus, Safety, Crash

Abstract

Motorcycle rider crashing into heavy vehicles such as trucks and buses is a common occurrence on city roads, the absence of safety
features on a motorcycle makes the bike riders venerable to severe injuries. The existing safety regulations are mostly related to car
occupant safet,very few regulations imply to motorcycle design. Few studies have been carried out for motor cycle. They are more related
to accidents involving Motorcycle and car and in some case with obstacles such are pole and Road side rails.

There is a need to incorporate safety features which can save the motorcycle user from sevier injury. In this paper we are discussing
about FEA simulation of the commonly occurring accident scenarios by using CAE software. The rear impact and side impact on a
motorcycle by a city bus was the focus of this study due to some of the obvious short coming in the design of the city bus such as high
ground clearance without RUP and absence of bumper on the rear.
The existing design was evaluated for rear and side impact. The introduction of different safety features such as RUP and overlaying
rigid zones with softer material was also evaluated. The results obtained from the simulation were analyzed for various biomechanical
limits specified for the bike rider.The addition of safety features on the bus frame clearly showed positive results in terms of injury to the
head. The helmet also was found to be very effective in reducing the injury to the motorcycle rider.

Nomenclature aspects are considered during the two-wheeler

A Acceleration design nor do the riders use any protective
N Force clothing. The only protection being the helmet this
u Initial velocity protects the head while the rest of the body bears
t Time the brunt during an accident. The usage of helmet
v velocity, m/s is again more by compulsion of the law than due
to the concern for safety. The two wheeler density
Abbreviations being the highest on city roads with no dedicated
CAD Computer Aided Design lanes, they frequently meet with accidents with
CAE Computer Aided Engineering the much larger vehicles. Since safety related
FEM Finite Element Analysis studies are mostly carried out in the car and
HIC Head Injury Criterion truck/bus industry and they do not accommodate
RUP Rear underrun protection accident scenarios involving two wheeler riders.
SUP Side underrun protection The need to accommodate safety measures on
these larger vehicles to safeguard the two wheeler
Introduction riders is very much required especially in larger
vehicles which are frequently involved in two
India is a developing nation where the number of wheeler accidents on city roads.
people who can afford a car for safe commute is
less. The two wheelers are the most popular and Problem Definition
preferred mode of transport due to the low cost of
purchase and maintain. Motorcycle impact into heavy vehicles such as
trucks and buses is a common occurrence on city
The two wheeler riders are most venerable to roads; the absence of safety features on a
serious injury in an accident. Since no safety motorcycle makes the bike riders venerable to

Simulation Driven Innovation

severe injuries. The existing safety regulations are • Literature relating to the safety regulations
mostly relating to car occupant safety. Very few was collected and the short coming in the
regulations imply to motorcycle design. The current design was evalutated based on the
studies that have been carried out for motor cycles specification in the regulations.
are mostly related for accidents involving • 3D CAD and Finite Element models of the
Motorcycle and car and in some case with bus and bike were created using HyperMesh
obstacles such are pole and Road side rails. software.
• Finite element model was setup for the rear
and side impact of the bike against the bus at
impact velocity of 30 km/h. The simulation is
carried out in Altair Radioss software.
• The existing design was evaluated based on
simulations results and the safety regulations.
• New concept models were created to address
the design problems of the existing design.
• Simulations were carried out for the new
concept models and the new designs were
evaluated by compariing of results from the
Figure 1: Rear and Side impact of bike with bus [2]
earlier results and the regulation guidelines.
• The new designs were verified to check if the
The rear impact and side impact with a city bus
design objectives are met.
was the focus of the study due to some obvious
short coming in the design of the city bus such as
high ground clearance without RUP and absence Dummy and Biomechanical Limits
of bumper on the rear. The need to incorporate The Hybrid III 50th percentile male ellipsoidal
safety features which can save the motorcycle user dummy is the most widely applied dummy for the
from the Sevier injury. evaluation of automotive safety systems in crash
testing. It is acceptable in several standards
(FMVSS 208, ECE R94) and it is used in global
NCAP programmes.
The dummy has three accelerometers. One in the
head to measure the head acceleration which is
used to calculate the HIC.The second
accelerometer is in the center of the thorax to
Figure 2: Public transport Bus [1] and Truck with RUP and
measure the chest acceleration and chest
SUP [2] deflection, The third accelerometer is located at
the pelvic location to measure the pelvic
Objective acceleration which has a biomechanical limit of
60g over 3 ms.
The following were the objective of this
dissertation.
• To collect design and safety relevant details
of existing bus & two wheeler
• To evaluate the accident scenarios for the
existing design using simulation software.
• To incorporate safety features on bus to
safeguard the two wheeler riders in an Rear
and side impact accident scenario’s without
compromising on the functionality aspects.
• To assess the performance of the modified
design and suggest changes, if required, to
improve the safety performance

Methodology
The methodology used for development of the
project is as listed below.
• Literature review of existing data on
structural design of bus and two wheeler was
carried out.
Figure 3: Dummy and Biomechanical limits [4] [5]

Simulation Driven Innovation 2

 H> The other components such as seat, fuel tank
Finite Element Modelling are all made of shell elements, which are
connected to the body frame by equivalencing the
nodes are appropriate locations.

Figure 5: Finite Element model of Helmet

The helmet outer shell was made of shell elements
and the inner cushion portion is made of brick
elements; The number of solid elements across the
cross section was adjusted to suit the shape of the
dummy’s head. An opening at the front was
created by seletively deleting the brick elements.
Figure 4: Bike reference image [6] and FE model The dummys head and the helmet were connected
using spring elements to represent the strap in a
The FE model of the bike was created in regular helmet. Suitable plastic and foam material
HyperMesh software to closely match an actual properties were assigned to the outer shell and
bike property. inner solid elements respectively.
A > The front shock absorbers of the bike are
made of steel tubes of outer diameter 30mm and
an inner diameter of 20mm.
B > The front and rear mudguards are made of
1mm thick steel sheet, which are connected to the
front shock absorbers and to the frame of the bike
using rigid elements.
C > The tire with the rim are modeled as enclosed
volume. The enclosed volume is given an internal
pressure of 0.18 bars to represent the internal
pressure of an inflated tyre. The tyre elements are
assigned rubber material properties with tyre
thicknes of 5 mm.
D>. The rim is modeled using shell elements
which are assigned steel material properties and a Figure 6 :FE model of Bus and reference image [3]
thickness of 3mm. Further it is connected to the
Since the body structure of the bus was mostly
Axle using spokes of 2mm diameter, which are
fabricated from hollow rectangular tubes. beam
modelled using beam elements.
elements were selected to represent the tubes in
E > The axle is connected to the front shock
the Finite Element model. The beam cross section
absorber / Frame using Zero length spring
properties such as thickness and orientation of the
elements. The spring elements are allowed to
sections were verified to match with the actual
rotate freely about the axle axis to enable tyre
structure. The welds/joints at the intersection of
rotation.
the beam elements were taken care by
F> The total weight of the bike is adjusted to
equivalencing the nodes of the beams. The frame
match with the actual weight of a Real bike. The
of the bus is modeled by 1 mm thick steel sheet.
mass distribution is done to various components
This was modelled using shell elements in
such that the center of gravity lies on the engine
HyperMesh
gear box, which is close to the actual CG location
of a real bike.
G>The body frame of the bike is modelled using
hollow tubes of outer diamter 25mm and an inner
diameter of 21mm. The Fuel tank, Seat, Side
cover are all connected to this frame. The engine
block is also mounted on this frame.

Simulation Driven Innovation 3

Validation of FE Model of Bike increase of force on the wall (First peak), once the
front rim fails there is drop in the force on the
wall. The force again increases (second peak) as
the influence of the bike front frame takes effect.

Bike-Rider Set Up For Simulation

Figure 9: Bike and dummy connection

The dummy was connected to the bike at the

handle and the foot rest of the bike using spring
elements as indicated in the Figure 9. The spring
properties are set to rupture when the force
between the hands and the handle of the bike
Figure 7: Comparison of FE model against experimental exceeds to 250N [7]. This is the force that is
results [7]
required to open the grasp of the hand on the
The FE model of the bike was validated to match handle of the bike. Similar arrangement was made
experimental results for which several iterations between the feet of the dummy and the footrest of
were carried out with varying parameters such as the bike to keep the dummy connected to the bike.
tire properties, air pressure in tire, fork diameter The property of the springs at the feet is calibrated
etc. The results obtained from these trails were by carrying out little iteration until the kinematic
evaluated based on the Bike-Wall impact force, of the bike and dummy during impact was similar
deformation of tire and frame, kinematics of the to the results from experimental results as
bike structure during the course of impact against indicated in Figure 10.
crash film images. The deformation of the front
Validation of FE Model Of Bike
tire, rim, front shock absorbers and the upward
movement of the rear tire in the above images
were also taken into consideration while arriving
at the right parameters in the bike FE model.

Figure 8 :Comparison of Impact force of bike on

wall with Experimental results [7]

The impact force exerted by the bike on the rigid

wall has two peaks. In the initial stage there is an

Simulation Driven Innovation 4

Figure 10 :Comparison of Bike-Rider kinematics with
experimental results [7]

The initial deformations of the tire, rim, and frame

were followed by the contact of the Engine block
with the rear portion of the front tire. The change
in the dummy’s sitting posture during the course
of the crash was also found to be a good match
against the crash film images referenced. The Figure 14: Head Accelerations and HIC -Rear impact -Rider
release of the hands from the handle of the bike without helmet
also occurred at the right instance, since release of
both the hands trigger the dummy to move in the The head of the dummy makes contact with the
forward direction as in the crash film images. rear of the bus at a location which is reinforced
Based on these observations the kinematics of the with beams (i.e. the head impacts a rigid spot on
bike with rider impacting a rigid wall was the rear of the bus). This causes rapid deceleration
presumed to be a close match with real crash of the head, leading to higher HIC values of
(Note: The crash test film reference images of the 1051.15. This is more than the biomechanical
Bike and Car impacts are shown in Fig10. These limits specified for this dummy. The CLIP values
images are used only to evaluate the kinematics of also exceed the upper limit of 80g over 3ms. The
the dummy during impact). pelvic and chest acceleration are below the limits
of 60g over 3 ms.
1. REAR IMPACT–Rider without helmet
2. REAR IMPACT –Rider with helmet

Figure 11 :Rear impact– Rider without helmet

Figure 15: Rear impact– Rider with helmet

The major portion of the impact force was
absorbed by the mudguard, front tire. This was
follwed by the bending of the front frame (shock
absorber) of the bike. The forward movement of
the bike was restrianed by the cross beam in the
frame of the bus. The cross beam and the
suporting beams also bend inward, the sheet on
the outer frame of the bus also deforms. The
Figure 12 :Rear impact– Rider without helmet intrusion of the bike is evident from the above
images. The rear tire of the bike moves in the
upward direction due to the momentum in the
bike. The rear wheel continues to spin even after
impact. The helmet of the rider makes contact
with the rear of the bus. The impact force
between the Riders head and the rear portion of
the bus is cushioned by the helmet. The helmets
outer shell takes the brunt of the impact force
while the Foam material on the inside of the
Figure 13: Pelvis & Chest Accelerations -Rear impact -Rider helmet offers cushioning effect to the riders head.
without helmet The impact leaves a dent on the outer shell of the
helmet as evident from the Figure 15.
There is very little difference in the pelvis and
chest acceleration when compare to the senarion
of rider with out helmet. The HIC values reduces

Simulation Driven Innovation 5

significantly in this case due to the helmet on the Figure 18: Side impact– Rider with helmet
riders head. The HIC values of 576 is well below
the biomechanical limit of 1000. The CLIP also The impact senario is similar to the earlier
reduces to 54.64 which is again below limits. accident senario. The only difference being the
From this evaluation it is clearly evident the presence of a helmet on the riders head. The front
helmet is a life saver dureing head on impact. portion of the helmet strike the rigid zone on the
side of the bus frame the helmets outer shell
2. SIDE IMPACT –Rider without helmet crushes due to the high intensity of impact. The
front tire, mudguard, shock absorber (frame of
bike) absorb some portion of the energy.

CONCEPT 1 –Bus with Steel RUP

Figure 16 :Side impact– Rider without helmet

Figure 19 :Steel RUP attachment to the chassis

Figure 20: Rear impact– Bus with Steel RUP

Figure 17: Side impact– Rider without helmet The front tire of the bike on impact strike the flat
The side frame of the bus has no crumple zone( face of the RUP followed by the frame of the bus.
i.e. The outer frame of the bus is welded to the The RUP buckles easily due to the hollow section
chassis frame with out any space between the and the stell angle which transfer the forces from
outer frame and the chassi frame) the only the RUP to the chasss frame also bend backward
resistance offered by the bus structure is from the absorbing a major portion of the impact force. The
frame extension below the chassis frame. The front tire, rim, mudguard and the shockabsorber of
bikes front tire strikes the vertical beam of 40X60 the bike also deform.
crossection which again make this impact a rigid The helmet of the rider strike the beam reinforced
one when compared to the rear impacts. spot on the rear portion of the bus. A dent is
created on the outer shell of the helmet while the
4. SIDE IMPACT –Rider with helmet inner foam material protects the riders head.
The front portion of the bike also does not deform
as much as in senario with out RUP.

CONCEPT 2 –Bus with Foam RUP

Figure 21: Foam RUP attachment to the chassis

Simulation Driven Innovation 6

 The impact leaves a dent on the helmet outer skin
while the rubber lining crushes dureing the cource
of impact. the damage to the bike remain the same
as in earlier senarion.the front tire,mudguard and
shock sbsorbers take the brunt of the impact.
The pelvis and chest acceleration were well below
the biomechanical limits. The HIC value reduces
considerably to 43.45 due to the rubber lining
(with out rubber lining HIC was 1439).This is due
to the cushioning effect provides by the 30 mm
rubber lining at the spot of impact between the
helmet and the bus.
Figure 22 :Rear impact– Bus with Foam RUP
Result Summary

The kinematics of the bike and rider show similar Simulations were carried out on existing design
trends as in earlier senario. The only difference and based on the outcome new concept designs
being the deformation of the RUP. In this case the was made. The results which are exceeding the
RUP is very delicate since the reinforcing stell biomechanical limits for the rider are highted in
plate is flat and it easily buckles on impact. The the below table.
Foam material under goes large deformation
dureing the course of impact. The Impact of the HIC
Helmet on the bus rear leave a dent on the helemt Rear Impact
outer shell. The bikes front tire, rim, mudguard Without Helmet 1051.15
and shockabsorbers deform on impact. The HIC With Helmet 576.83
value of 17.89 is well below the biomechanical
CONCEPT 1- STEEL RUP 15.23
limits. This clearly demostrated this RUP is
CONCEPT 2 - FOAM RUP 17.89
effective in reducing the injury to the rider. On
comparison with the STEEL RUP (HIC -15.23) Side Impact
the FOAM RUP (HIC-17.89) is found to be less Without Helmet 8801.57
effective due to the large deformation of the Foam With Helmet 1439.93
material and less reinforcement behind the Foam CONCEPT 3 - Rubber Lining 43.45
material.
Table 1 :Result summary
CONCEPT 3 –Bus with Rubber lineing –Side
Impact 8.2 Conclusions
• The helmet was found to be a life saver in both
the accident senario of rear impact as well as
side impact. The HIC values without helmet
were above the permissible limit of 1000.
• The side impact was found to be more severe
due to the absence of a crumble zone which is
provided in the rear portion of the bus structure.
Figure 23 :Rubber lineing on rigid zone on side of bus This is evident from the higher HIC values for
side impact.
• The pelvis and chest accelerations were slightly
higher in side impact due to the rigid structure
on side frame of the bus. This results in higher
impact velocity of the riders head aginst the bus
leading to higher HIC.
• The steel RUP in rear impact was found to be
adequetly reinforced to absorbe the impact force
due to which there is a lower HIC of 15.23.
• The foam RUP in rear impact reduced the HIC
value to 17.89.However the structure buckled
Figure 24 :Side impact– Bus with Rubber lineing on rigid (under went large deformation) due to the
delicate reinforceing steel plate on the rare of
zone-Details
the RUP.

Simulation Driven Innovation 7

• The combination of foam material on the inside [9] A.B. Ibitoye, A.M.S. Hamouda, S.V.Wong, R.S. Radin
“Simulation of motorcyclist’s kinematics during impact with
of the helmet, the helmets outer shell and the W-Beam guardrail - 20 June 2005.
rubber lining on the bus effectively reduce the
HIC value significalty. [10] C.K. How, B.Eng.*, M H Megat Ahmad , R.S. Radin
Umar , A M S Hamouda , S Harwant “Crash Simulation of
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Simulation Driven Innovation 8