German, 5 pages, 3 figures
Keywords: crast test, rear impact, delta-v, vehicle structure, car damage, accident reconstruction

Modern cars are designed much differently in terms of structural stiffness as cars of less recent model years. This holds also true for low impact velocities of the rear and front end. Therefore it is often difficult to assess delta-v and acceleration of these cars for real world accident reconstruction purposes. In order to overcome these shortcomings the Swiss Insurance Association has sponsored a comprehensive crash test study. It was undertaken by the Working Group on Accident Mechanics (CH-Zurich), engineers of the Winterthur and Zurich Insurance Companies at the Dynamic Test Center (CH-Vauffelin). The goal was a delta-v of the target car of 10 km/h.
27 rear end crashs have been performed with a high-end standard data acquisition. The – less extensive – data of 35 additional cases were purchased or received free of charge by several institutions. The 62 data sets are available on the internet, free of charge (www.agu.ch, see “crash test data base”). The crash test cases can be compared with the characteristics of the actual car involved in a accident in order to improve the the reconstruction accuracy of low speed rear and front impacts. It allows also for a better validation of the results of the computerised accident analysis.