Original Article

International Journal of Mechanical

Engineering Education
Mathematical model 2017, Vol. 45(1) 89–100
ß The Author(s) 2016
of a vehicle crash: Reprints and permissions:
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A case study DOI: 10.1177/0306419016669037

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Marcus Varanis and Arthur Mereles

Abstract
Case studies are very useful when it comes to students’ education. They show to them
the issues that are faced by the mechanical engineers and what the students should do
to resolve those issues during their professional career. In that sense, this paper pre-
sents a case study that can be presented in undergraduate and graduate courses where
a vehicle crash collision is modeled by a spring-mass-damper system. The spring of the
system will be considered to have a nonlinear force–deflection characteristic. The
model proposed in this paper allows one to obtain the parameters of the system,
and then compare them with the ones obtained experimentally to test the suitability
of the model with the vehicle crash. The responses of the system will be obtained by
numerical approximation by using the Runge–Kutta algorithm.

Keywords
Case study, vehicle crash, mathematical model, numerical simulation

Introduction
This paper presents a case study of a real application based on an underdamped
vibration model with the use of a nonlinear spring. The kind of the model proposed
is not new, because the use of differential equations in real applications is very
common in engineering education. The case study presented was developed for the
for the usage in undergraduate courses. The textbooks on mechanical vibrations in
general do not bring similar applications, and they treat the nonlinearities in a very
superficial way, many times as an optional content. For example, authors like Rao,
Kelly, Meirovitch, Inman, Shabana, Hartog and Balchandran do not make this
kind of analysis nor applications in their textbooks.
The case study presented the highlights of the possibility of the use of the model
in various disciplines, such as dynamics, mechanical vibrations, control, numerical

Faculty of Engineering, Federal University of Grande Dourados, Dourados, Brazil

Corresponding author:
Marcus Varanis, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade Federal Dourados, Dourados, Brazil.
Email: marcusvaranis@ufgd.edu.br
90 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 45(1)

methods, signal and systems, and others. The parameter change of the model
allows a wide range of applications in a way that it can be used to study a great
amount of phenomena. Moreover, the literature shows that the model has good
precision when compared with the experimental tests.
Case studies have been implemented in classrooms for sometime. They have
become useful in many disciplines, including engineering, and recently have been
finding their way as explicit parts of engineering texts.1 Also, the implementation of
real life problems in classrooms is important for the students exercise their growing
technical knowledge and analytical capability in the context of real engineering
problems.2 In addition, Saliba et al.3 and Sinatra and Angeles4 show some exam-
ples of case studies used for pedagogical objectives in engineering courses. We now
introduce some background on the vehicle crash analysis.
One of the various problems of vehicle manufacturing is to know if the vehicle
built is indeed safe to be driven. To take such conclusions, one must prepare a crash
test to get familiar with the vehicle behavior during a collision; thus, the exact time
to deploy safety equipment, like air-bags and seat belts, can be known. It is also
important to know some structural parameters of the vehicle. However, the process
to obtain these parameters as well as the behavior of the vehicle during the collision
turn out to be very difficult and expensive. Therefore, mathematical models have
been developed with the purpose of substituting this process.
There are usually two categories of vehicle crash analysis: finite element method
(FEM) models and lumped parameter models (LPM).5 The analysis by FEM is
generally done by making models on CAD software. This method provides a very
detailed analysis and gives the material responses during the crash. The problem is
that to make a model correctly is no easy task, and the simulations are time con-
suming. On the other hand, the results obtained are very satisfactory. Zaouk et al.6
made a nonlinear FEM analysis, and the results obtained are very reasonable.
The LPM consist in studying viscoelastic systems and proposing equations of
motion to describe them. With this method, one can analyze the crash pulse, sim-
plify the phenomenon to a viscoelastic system and, after obtaining some param-
eters of it (spring stiffness, damper coefficient, etc.), simulate the system. Pawlus
et al.7–9 fit the real car displacement to the model’s responses by applying an LPM,
and in Klausen et al.,5 various types of LPM together with a firefly optimization are
applied.
In this paper, a mathematical model of a spring-mass-damper system will be
established considering the spring with an elasto-plastic characteristic. For the
elasto-plastic analysis, the spring will be considered to have two phases: a loading
and an unloading phase. This analysis was also done in Pawlus et al.10; the differ-
ence between that analysis and the one done in this paper is the damper that will be
added at the unloading phase. This complement is done with the purpose to let the
model more realistic. In addition, the nonlinear behavior of the system will be
shown by analyzing the phase space diagram.
A wide range of engineering problems are mathematically modeled by the use of
methods based on the linear theory, which in many cases is enough for the
Varanis and Mereles 91

comprehension of the dynamic characteristics of a system. However, with the

advent of new materials with higher levels of flexibilities as well as the study of
complex phenomena, nonlinearities must be added in the models, which require the
use of nonlinear methods in order to completely describe the system. This process
makes the model to be much closer to the real phenomenon and uses a wide range
of parameters that are not considered in linear models.
In Pawlus et al.,10 three scenarios for the unloading phase were considered:
elastic, plastic and elasto-plastic. The plastic scenario showed better suitability
with the response of the full-scale experiment, although the authors claimed that
is advisable to use springs with elasto-plastic behavior in a vehicle crash mathem-
atical model. The linear analysis that will be made in this paper showed a similar
relation with this plastic behavior. However, the application of the elasto-plastic
spring with the damper in the unloading part showed reasonable results that were
close to the responses obtained in the real experiment.
In this context, the objective of the present work is to present and discuss the
numerical responses of a system modeled by ordinary differential equations. The
example chosen, vehicle collision, is highlighted due to the fact that it is still a
subject under research and it has a great amount of formulations already estab-
lished. In Huang,11 one can find more methods and formulations to analyze the
vehicle crash phenomenon.

Spring-mass-damper model
The model that will be investigated is a spring-mass-damper system with no exter-
nal forces. The damper will act after some deformation suffered by the spring. The
idea of doing that is to represent a permanent deformation for the spring. Figure 1
represents the nonlinear model, where c is the damper coefficient, kU is the spring
stiffness at the unloading phase, kL is the spring stiffness at the loading phase, v0 is
the initial velocity, m is the mass of the system and xm is the maximum
deformation.
For the linear analysis, kU ¼ 0; thus, the spring stiffness will not change. The use
of the spring with the elasto-plastic characteristic is a good improvement to the

Figure 1. Spring-mass-damper model.

92 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 45(1)

mathematical model. The damper applied at the unloading part also showed to be a
good improvement, but one must clarify its real need.
Without the damper, the model would be a simple spring-mass system with a
sinusoidal response. It is intuitive to think that the vehicle will oscillate, at least a
bit, during the collision, and thus it is reasonable to think that a model with
a damping is more suitable to be used instead of a nondamped one. This concept
clarifies the use of the damper at the unloading phase, since without it the system
would oscillate infinitely with two different frequencies (due to the two phases
considered).

Experimental data
The data that will be used in this paper have been taken from Pawlus et al.,10 and a
full description of the experiment can be seen in Pawlus et al.12 The acceleration
signal was obtained by an accelerometer sensor, and the velocity and the displace-
ment were obtained by integrating it. The signal is from a vehicle to pole collision,
which consumes a lot of energy because of the minor rebound produced compared
to a vehicle–rigid barrier collision.

Background
Model’s description
To establish the mathematical model, we will divide the analysis by the two kinds
of oscillatory movements present in the model. The first part of the movement will
be a non-decayed oscillatory one, and the second part will be an underdamped
system with an exponential decay.
The use of only a spring in the loading phase reasonably represents the behavior
of the vehicle colliding, till its velocity becomes zero. This use, only a spring, also
facilitates the analysis making less complicated to obtain the parameters. Since
there is no damping on this part, the response will be a sinusoidal one and the
equation of motion will be

€ þ kL xðtÞ ¼ 0
mxðtÞ ð1Þ

where x(t) is the model’s displacement, m is the system’s mass and k is the
spring stiffness. For the second part of the movement, the equation of motion
will be

€ þ cxðtÞ
mxðtÞ _ þ kU xðtÞ ¼ 0 ð2Þ

which now have a damper coefficient c. Equations (1) and (2) will be solved numer-
ically to obtain the model’s responses.
Varanis and Mereles 93

Figure 2. Nonlinear force-deflection characteristic.

Elasto-plastic behavior
All the springs exhibit an elasto-plastic characteristic, which means that after the
application and the release of an excessive force, there will be a change in the spring
stiffness with a loss of the elastic energy due to the plastic deformation. Application
of the spring which has a nonlinear force deflection characteristic is a considerable
improvement to the vehicle crash mathematical model.10
In the nonlinear analysis, the spring stiffness will be considered to change after
the collision; thus there will be a loading spring stiffness (kL), which is the stiffness
during the collision, and an unloading spring stiffness (kU), where kL 5 kU .
Figure 2 shows the elasto-plastic behavior.
As one can see in Figure 2, the spring has a permanent deformation, given by xp,
and a elastic recovery, given by xe, which represents the elastic energy recovered by
the spring. Also from the figure, the force at the maximum deformation can be
written as

F1 ¼ kL xm ¼ kU xe ð3Þ

which one can write as follows

 
xm
kU ¼ kL ð4Þ
xe

Equation (4) will be used to find the unloading spring stiffness.

Phase space diagram

The phase space of a dynamic system is a space that represents all the possible
states of a dynamic system. It usually consists of all the possible positions and
momentum or velocity variables. To determine the future behavior of a dynamic
system, these variables must be known.
94 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 45(1)

A linear system is a system that can be broken down into parts13 to be analyzed
separately. On the contrary, in a nonlinear system the parts must be analyzed
together; in other words, the superposition principle fails. The nonlinearities pre-
sent in the dynamic system can be noted by analyzing the phase space diagram. For
an undamped system, the trajectory shown in the phase space is generally an
ellipse, because there is no energy dissipation. In a damped system, we usually
see an ellipse with a radius decay, with the distances between the trajectories
being constant and the trajectory converge to the center of the ellipse. This last
characteristic is not shared by the damped nonlinear systems; in these cases, the
distances are different and the motion does not converge to the center of the ellipse.
With this element, the nonlinear effects are introduced in the model in a way that
it turns out to be more adequate to represent the vehicle crash phenomenon by
making it more complete and realistic.

Proposed methodology
For the simulation of the model, one must have some initial experimental param-
eters. In this paper, the data obtained in Pawlus et al.10 will be used, as shown in
Table 1. All the plots were made by using MATLAB.

Numerical simulations
The following shows the simulation results of the linear and the nonlinear system.
The MATLAB’s solver ode45 was used to obtain the responses of the model. This
solver computes the fourth-order Runge–Kutta algorithm. At this point, despite it
is an elementary formulation, the instructor can make a use of the phase space
analysis as a bridge to the nonlinear case proposed in the model.

Linear analysis
The initial conditions to the two differential equations governing the two parts of
_ ¼ v0 for equation (1) and xð0Þ ¼ x0 and xðtÞ
the motion are: xð0Þ ¼ 0 and xðtÞ _ ¼0
for equation (2). Using these initial conditions, the responses can be obtained and
they are shown in Figure 3.

Table 1. Initial parameters.

Parameter Value

Initial velocity (v0)(m/s) 9.86

Mass of the system (m)(kg) 873
Maximum deformation (xm)(m) 0.52
Permanent deformation (xp)(m) 0.50
Varanis and Mereles 95

(a) Transient Responses

60

Displacement [cm], Velocity [km/h], Acceleration [g]

40

20

-20

-40
Displacement
Velocity
Acceleration
-60
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Time [ms]
(b) Force vs Displacement Force vs Time
180 180

160 160

140 140

120 120
Force [kN]

Foce [kN]

100 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0 50 100 150 200
Displacement [m] Time [ms]

(c) Phase Space Diagram Phase Space Diagram (Magnified)

10 0

8
-0.05

6
Velocity [m/s]

-0.1

-0.15
2

-0.2
0

-2 -0.25
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.5 0.505 0.51 0.515 0.52
Displacement[m] Displacement[m]

Figure 3. Model’s response (a), reaction force of the system (b) and phase space diagram
(c) (linear analysis).
96 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 45(1)

The discontinuity seen in the acceleration response (Figure 3(a)) occurs due to
the viscoelastic force (F ¼ cx)_ added at that instant. This discontinuity can also be
seen in the reaction force response of the system (Figure 3(b)).
Since the spring stiffness does not change, the natural frequency remains constant,
and the only parameter that changes in the second part of the movement is the
amplitude, whose maximum value is 0.02 m. Thus, to maintain the same period
and frequency, the graph has a ‘‘distension,’’ giving the aspect seen in the responses.
The phase space diagram (Figure 3(c)) gave an expected outcome. By analyzing
it, the linear behavior of the system can be clearly noted. Despite the short time
simulated, one can conclude, by the trajectory outcome, that it is an ellipse and the
trajectory converges to its center. Thus, as discussed in the phase space diagram
section, this is a sign of a linear system.
A detailed study on the numerical solution of differential equations can be seen
in Atkinson et al.14 and Stanoyevitch,15 and other books on the topic.

Nonlinear analysis
The initial conditions for the nonlinear analysis are the same as used in the previous
section. The responses can then be plotted and are shown in Figure 4.
As one can see, with the change of the spring stiffness, which consequently
changed the system’s natural frequency, the responses showed no discontinuities.
The elasto-plastic behavior is also seen in the reaction force of the system in the
force vs. displacement plot (Figure 4(b)).
We can note by analyzing the phase space diagram (Figure 4(c)) that the system
behaves as a nonlinear one. The distances between the trajectories are not constant
and do not converge to the center of the ellipse. This is a sign of a nonlinearity as
discussed in the ‘‘Phase space diagram’’ section.

The effect of the damping factor

To show the effect of the damping on the model’s response, the value of the
damping factor () will be changed. Also, only the displacement of the response
of the second part of the movement will be analyzed.
Figure 5 shows how the displacement at the unloading part behaves with the
change of the damping factor. As it was discussed in the ‘‘Spring-mass-damper
model’’ section, the implementation of the damper in the model is a good improve-
ment and it raises the model’s fidelity with the real car crash phenomenon, as
there is no real system without any kind of damping. By analyzing Figure 5,
one can see that without the damper on this part, the movement would be a
sinusoidal one.
The damping factor chosen for the nonlinear analysis was  ¼ 0:5; this is due to
the fact that after reaching the maximum deformation, the real experimental signal
showed that the vehicle oscillates a bit, and this value for the damping factor
Varanis and Mereles 97

(a) Models Response

60

Displacement [cm], Velocity [km/h], Acceleration [g]

40

20

-20

-40
Displacement
Velocity
Acceleration
-60
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Time [ms]
(b) Force vs Displacement Force vs Time
200 200

150 150

100 100
Force [kN]

Foce [kN]

50 50

0 0

-50 -50
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0 50 100 150 200
Displacement [m] Time [ms]

(c) 10
Phase Space Diagram
0.2
Phase Space Diagram (Magnified)

0
8

-0.2
6
Velocity [m/s]

-0.4
4
-0.6

2
-0.8

0
-1

-2 -1.2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.495 0.5 0.505 0.51 0.515 0.52
Displacement[m] Displacement[m]

Figure 4. Model’s response (a), reaction force of the system (b) and phase space diagram
(c) (nonlinear analysis).
98 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 45(1)

Effect of the damping factor

0.02
ζ = 0.01
ζ = 0.3
0.015 ζ = 0.5
ζ =1
ζ =3
0.01
Displacement [m]

0.005

-0.005

-0.01

-0.015

-0.02
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
Time [s]

Figure 5. The effect of the damping factor in the model’s displacement.

represented this behavior well, since by using it, the model behaves as an under-
damped system.
With the damping factor critically damped, the responses shown were also very
similar to the real experimental data. This happens because, as discussed in the
‘‘Experimental data’’ section, it was a car to pole collision. This kind of collision
produces a minimum rebound on the vehicle, and thus a critically damped system
would represent this collision well. However, to better represent the real phenomenon
it is advisable to use an underdamped system as the model presented in this paper.

Simulation results
The results obtained with the presented model showed reasonable conformity with
the literature. The comparison between the model’s response and the real experi-
mental data can be done by reviewing Pawlus et al.,10,12 where all the information
about the experiment can also be reviewed.

Conclusions
In this paper, we have presented a case study of a mathematical model of a vehicle
crash where the phenomenon was modeled as a spring-mass-damper system. For
the modeling, the elementary concepts of mechanical vibrations and ordinary dif-
ferential equations were used. As a teaching purpose, the model can be used in
classrooms to show how the use of simple concepts can lead to a good description
of a very complicated phenomenon like a vehicle crash.
Through the numerical analysis performed, one can verify the good agreement
between the responses obtained and the results of the experimental tests made in
Pawlus et al.10 That allows to confirm that the formulation and methodology pre-
sented in the case study are efficient and can be an effective way of teaching.
Varanis and Mereles 99

The model presented in this paper can be used in the dynamics and mechanical
vibration disciplines in undergraduate and graduate courses, as this is a model
based on a second-order ordinary differential equation. The nonlinearities were
added in a simple way by just changing the spring-mass-damper system arrange-
ment. In the numeric solutions of the equations, the Runge–Kutta algorithm was
used with the solver ode45 of MATLAB. However, one can use any other numeric
simulation package to solve the equations. Additionally, some comments related to
the computational modeling, numeric methods for solving the equations of move-
ment and the use of other computational tools can be made by the instructor,
which enforces the interdisciplinarity of the case study presented.
In our future work, we will test different combinations of springs and dam-
pers in the first or second parts of the movement, like putting the damper and
the spring in series at the unloading part, as well as using nonlinear damping,
with the purpose of having an even more closer response to the real experiment
signal.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

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