Abstract
Reconstruction of a road accident means to determine the impact velocities and initial collision angle, sizes which can be determined with high accuracy when it is known deformation energy and the restitution coefficient. Determining these two quantities assume the knowledge of the stiffness coefficient of body car , which are often not communicated by the vehicle manufacturer after performing crash tests on that model. Crash tests with fixed barrier require high costs so the paper suggests a method for determining the stiffness coefficients of the body car using an experimental model so constructed as to respect the principle of similarity theory for both the model and prototype and also for the collision process.
It is considered that the perfect similarity conditions are fulfilled when the conditions for geometry similarity, the similarity the kinematics and the dynamics are simultaneously satisfied . The paper describes the steps to be followed and calculation parameters which ensure the perfect similarity between the model and the prototype. The prototype will have kinematics characteristics, geometry characteristics and dynamics characteristics close or identical to a real vehicle whose deformation characteristics will be determined. Keywords: similarity theory, stiffness coefficients, prototype, model,deformation energy