Side impact accidents of passenger cars with fixed poles may result in severe injuries to the vehicle occupants. In this paper, side structure intrusion was considered as the criterion for passenger cars crashworthiness during side impact with a pole. The relationship between side intrusions and the side structure stiffness was analyzed. The acceleration of the unstruck side vehicle body was selected as the criterion for studying the influence of different side structure components on the side structure stiffness during passenger car pole side impacts. The behavior was analyzed using finite element simulations. The results show that the rocker and the lower part of the B-pillar are the key parts of the side structures in determining the passenger car side stiffness. Passenger car pole side impact crashworthiness is, therefore, most sensitive to these two components.

To clearly understand passenger car structure’s crashworthiness in typical side impacts of pole and moving deformable barrier (MDB) impact modes, which could assist the establishment of Chinese vehicle side impact safety regulations, a full midsized car finite element model, calibrated by pole side impact test, was built and the pole side impact according to European New Car Assessment Program (EuroNCAP) and the MDB side impact according to ECE R95 regulations were simulated with LS-DYNA. The accelerations and the structure deformations from simulations were compared. It can be concluded that the pole side impact focuses primarily on side structure crashworthiness as a result of large intrusions, while the MDB side impact focuses primarily on full side structure crashworthiness. Accordingly, occupant protection strategies focus on different aspects to improve side impact safety. In the pole side impact the objective is to maintain the passenger compartment and protect the passenger’s head from impacting the pole, while in the MDB side impact the objective is to protect the full human body. In the design of the car side structures, at least these two tests should be considered for assessing their side impact crashworthiness. Conducting these two side impact tests as certified tests provides insights into car safety during side impacts.