Full car crash tests are extremely complex and expensive. For this reason, crash simulator systems have been developed in order to evaluate systems performance by means of simplified and economic tests which represent the scenario and dynamic conditions of a full vehicle crash. For the definition of these testing systems numerical simulation is extensively used in order to support the development tasks.
A typical example is the development of a side crash testing simulator. A simplified side crash configuration is built including the most representative elements of the vehicle side (door assembly, seat, vehicle floor, dummy, ...). The simplified door includes its main components (internal and external skins, window regulator, ...). The whole door assembly and side vehicle structure, as well as the seat, have been reinforced conveniently in order to be used for several tests without the need to be repaired or substituted after each one. A deformable door trim module is attached to the rigid structure with special fixings.
All the parts reinforced for the tests, in order to be considered as rigid, are modelled as rigid body entities in the simulation model definition.