Abstract
Estimating the vehicle collision speed is one of the important things in the traffic accident investigation. The vehicle collision speed can be estimated from the energy absorption capacity of the vehicle’s deformation volume, then investigators observe and measure the vehicle’s damage condition. However, when a vehicle collides into a guard-pipe, both the vehicle and the guard-pipe are deformed. Consequently, in order to estimate the correct vehicle collision speed, it is also necessary to consider the energy absorption capacity of the guard-pipe’s deformation volume. In this study, in order to improve the estimation of the vehicle collision speed to a guard-pipe, a crash analysis was done to examine the energy absorption capacity of the guard-pipe. The guard-pipe used in the crash analysis was fixed on a cohesive soil. According to the analysis results, main energy absorption capacity of the guard-pipe can be derived by estimating the energy absorption of guard-pipe’s center post, center ground, and lower parts. The correlation between the inclination angle of guard-pipe’s center post and the energy absorption capacity was clarified. Finally, estimation method of the vehicle collision speed was developed using the correlation between the inclination angle and the collision speed.
