Impact project: Searching for solution to the underride problem

Abstract

Rear underride crashes kill thousands of people yearly worldwide. Underride guards did not follow the progress achieved by the automotive safety technology. Searching for solutions to this problem, two new guards have been designed and three crash tests carried out. A new articulated, an energy absorbing conceptual guard and a guard constructed according to the European (ECE-R58) regulation were tested. Both the new guards could avoid underride, the ECE-R58 one could not. The tests pointed out that the new articulated guard could be used after a few modifications and the conceptual one needs further optimization to become commercially feasible. © 1998 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.