Structural crashworthiness—possibilities and practicalities

Historically, improvements to the crashworthiness of rolling stock have come about largely through the investigation of accidents. More recently, specific programmes of work have been aimed at providing and validating improved levels of crashworthiness in vehicle design standards. Concurrently with these improvements, vehicle performance continues to advance and, as it does, the general public demands ever-increasing levels of safety; vehicle crashworthiness requirements must hence be continually reassessed. This paper addresses a few areas where enhancement of current standards should be considered to improve vehicle passive safety further.