Frontal crash simulation of vehicles against lighting columns using FEM

There are many severe and fatal crashes that result from vehicles colliding with street columns such as lighting columns. These cause extremely high impact forces and deformation on the frontal area of the car. The objective of the study is to demonstrate the frontal crash simulation of vehicle against lighting columns to examine injury risk and potential of safety. In particular, various FE models are used to perform contact-impact nonlinear dynamic analysis of lighting columns with vehicle. In this paper Abaqus explicit code is used to numerically simulate the crash of the vehicle with present columns and other lighting columns fabricated from a new suggested material. The acceleration, contact force and deformed energy at the frontal region of the vehicle are traced. It is found that the lighting columns with new suggested material have impact properties to decelerate the vehicle and absorb higher energy during impact.