Challenges to create the infrastructure for conducting

GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH CENTRE

ENSURING SAFE DRIVE

Challenges to create the infrastructure for conducting full vehicle crash tests as per the

current regulations.

By

M.V.Ramachandran & Hariharan.R

2|GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH CENTRE - ENSURING SAFE DRIVE

• Introduction of NATRiP,GARC,APSL

• Brief introduction to Crash testing.

• Infrastructure requirements of crash testing lab.

• Development of crash testing lab

• Challenges faced in developing crash testing lab.

Contents


• National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP), the largest and one of the most significant initiatives in Automotive sector so far, represents a unique joining of hands between the Government of India, a number of State Governments and Indian Automotive Industry to create a state of the art Testing, Validation and R&D infrastructure in the country.

• The Project aims at creating core global competencies in Automotive sector in India and facilitate seamless integration of Indian Automotive industry with the world as also to position the country prominently on the global automotive map. The facilities under NATRiP are

Sr. No. Name of Centre

1 ICAT - Manesar

2 GARC - Chennai

3 NATRAX -Indore

4 ARAI - Pune

5 NCAT - Ahmednagar

6 NCVRS/ADAC - Rae Bareli

7 NIAMT- [Silchar]

About NATRiP


• A Unit of NATRIP at Oragadam, Chennai, Tamilnadu.

• A 304 acres of facility and investment of 950 Crores (Approx).

The Facilities at GARC are• Vehicle Evaluation Lab (Test Tracks) • Fatigue Lab• Safety Component Lab & Photometry Lab• Advanced Passive Safety Lab (APSL) (Centre of excellence)• EMC & EMI. (Centre of excellence)• Power train Lab• Infotronics & CAD/CAE. (Centre of excellence)• Recycling Demo Unit

.

About GARC


• Advance Passive safety lab(APSL),GARC is one of the Center of excellence of GARC for conducting full vehicle crash test and car to car angular crash test as per worldwide regulations for vehicle upto 12T capacity with total area of 25000 Sqm.

• APSL has 32 dummies and inhouse dummy calibration equipments .

• Current crash test facilities in India

ARAI,Pune

ICAT,Manesar

Why APSL GARC is Center of excellence??S.No Specification ICAT & ARAI GARC

1 Max Weight 3500 kg 12000 kg

2 Max Speed 85 km/h 120 km/h for 3.5T and 80 Km/h for

12T

3 Track Length 110m 265m

4 Car to Car test Not Feasible Feasible from every angle from 90° to

185°.

APSL,GARC


• What is crash testing???

A crash test is a form of destructive testing performed in order to ensure safe design standards in crashworthiness and crash compatibility for various modes of transportation or related systems and components.

• Why crash testing???

Different crash testing groups have different goals.

i) The government, want to set safety standards and make sure automakers adhere to them.

ii) NCAPs test to warn consumers of safety risks that might not be covered in government tests.

iii)OEMs want to engineer safety systems that will keep their customers safe

All of these goals lead to one thing: reducing deaths from automotive accidents.

Introduction


• Earlier scenario of crash test.

Introduction


• Regulation & Protocols

Introduction


• Regulation & Protocols

Introduction


Type of crash test conducted world wide:-

• Frontal-impact tests

Full Frontal

Moderate offset tests

Small Offset tests

• Side-impact tests

Pole impact tests

• Rear Impact tests

• Rollover tests

Introduction


• Acceleration tracks

• Impact blocks

• Filming pit

• Lighting structures

• Cameras

• Dummies

• DAS & sensors

Image courtesy: M/s Messring

Infrastructure Requirements


• The acceleration tracks are required for the acceleration of vehicle at the required speed before impact.

• The surface finish of the track should be maintained within ±2 mm per meter and the total of ±5 mm for the entire test track for preventing the Crash test dummies movement during the acceleration.

• The acceleration of vehicle should be within 0.1g to 0.5g to prevent the dummy movement inside of vehicle

• An acceleration track varies from 120 m to 265 m based on the speed of impact , weight of impact vehicle and the “g” level of tests.

Acceleration tracks



Acceleration tracks

ACTS angular_komp.avi


Acceleration tracks


• Impact block are reaction block on which the vehicle is crash tested.

• The mass of the impact block shall be a minimum of 50T for vehicles upto3,500 kg.

• The Impact block can be movable or fixed.

• The reaction forces vary from 3.2 MN to 22 MN

Impact Blocks


Movable impact block




IMF Moving Barrier_komp.avi





• All the crash testing are usually recorded using high speed cameras of upto2000 Frames per second.

• The Lighting of 75000 Lux to 150000 Lux is required for the recording.

• Structures above the testing area is required from mounting the lighting system.

Lighting structures



Lighting structures


Lighting structures


• The filming pits are required for the recording of the videos of the under body of the car(Underbody deformation studies).

• Two types of filming pit Rectangular and Octagonal pit.

• Rectangular pits are used for vehicle crash on impact block and Octagonal filming pits are primarily used for car to car crash testing

• Upto 4m depth


Filming Pit


Filming Pit



Rectangular filming pit



Rectangular filming pit



Octagonal pit


• Calculation of length of track based on speed of impact.

Based on the world wide crash test scenarios conducted the following capability for

the lab was decided.

The length of the track was calculated as below.

1) Upto 80 Kmph @ 0.1g is 265m and @ 0.5g is 120m.

2) Upto 120 Kmph @ 0.3g is 100 m .

The above length is taking into account the 15m length required for constant velocity.

FIXED BLOCK

Max speed :80 km/h

Max.Mass of vehicle:12T

MOVABLE BLOCK

Max speed :120 km/h

Max.Mass of vehicle:3.5T

CAR TO CAR

Max speed :80km/h

Max.Mass of vehicle:3.5T

Advanced Passive Safety Lab


SCA NCA MCA ACA

165 m TRACK-1 100 m TRACK-2

Fixed blockRectangular film pit

Octagonal film pit

movable block





• Suitable electric motor( 800 kW) was selected for towing the vehicles upto 12T at required speed.

• The same motor shall be used in case of Car to car testing along with another motor of same capacity.

• The Instrumentation for collecting datas during crash like DAS, Cameras, lighting system, Dummies, sensors were also decided based on worldwide regulation and protocol.

• Reputed suppliers for the above equipments are available world wide and equipments were purchased from them.

• The utilities as per the requirement were also designed.



• The drive system i.e electrical motors for towing the vehicle to the required speed are to be placed inside the octagonal filming pit

• The ACA( Region marked in red) was planned to be open to sky. However to conduct tests at any time of the year and to prevent the equipments from the environmental conditions in chennai it was decided to cover the ACA with necessary roofing and PEB structure.

MCA ACA

Challenges


• The Main crash area require run off area during the car to car test and rollover test . The challenge is to have column free structure for the whole area of MCA ranging from span of 56m X 56m(3136sqm).

• Similarly the Angular crash area test shall be conducted from any angles ranging from 90° to 185 °. The challenge is to have column free structure for the whole area of ACA ranging from span of minimum 56m to a maximum of 126m(9000sqm).

Challenges


• IIT-Chennai took up the challenge for the designing the Structure for the APSL building.

• The design was carried out using conventional hot rolled steel structure in the SCA & NCA.

• Subsequent to Vardah cyclone in chennai the PEB in the MCA and ACA was designed using the below parameters:-i) the factor of safety was increased from 1.5 to 2.0 ii) wind speed was increased from 112 Kmph to 150kmph iii) the Soil strata at GARC is Murram upto 2 m depth followed by Loamy soil further down and seismic zone(Zone-3)

• Taking in to account of above factors and the Requirements for crash testing, IIT-Chennai opted for tubular section because of better moment of inertia and better torsional loads capability at optimized cost.

Challenges


• STAAD model MCA

Challenges


• STAAD model ACA

Challenges


• The Crash test facility of NATRiP at GARC,chennai is the Advanced Passive safety lab(APSL) is one of the centre of excellence of GARC facilities.Withthe complete covering of the angular crash area APSL,GARC is the second largest test facility in the world with completely covered track and the biggest crash testing lab in India.

• The lab is designed to conduct all the current worldwide regulations like

i) Frontal-impact tests

ii)Moderate offset tests

iii)Small Offset tests

iv)Side-impact tests

v)Rear Impact tests

vi)Rollover tests

• Due to column less structural design angular car to car test from 90° to 185 °. can be performed.

Conclusion

GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH CENTRE

ENSURING SAFE DRIVE

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Challenges to create the infrastructure for conducting