IMVITER · Implementation of Virtual Testing in Safety Regulations

Computer aided engineering is a routinely used technology for the design and testing of road vehicles, including the simulation of their response to an impact and the prediction of the risk of injuries sustained by the potential victims. But, so far, the release of a vehicle on the market still depends on the verification of the product compliance with safety standards through a series of type approval physical tests. To increase car industry competitiveness by reducing the burden of this type approval test system and to improve road safety by raising the quality level of protection measures, recent initiatives have been taken by both industry and public authorities, to promote the use of alternative ways (e.g. virtual test through numerical simulation) to check vehicle compliance with safety standards. The main objective of this project is the implementation of virtual (VT) procedures in existing safety standards by consolidation of advanced VT technologies, analyzing the ensuing costs and benefits and looking for the improvement of homologation procedures as well as setting the base for improvement of integrative safety. The achievement of this objective implies among others, that the accuracy of the simulation models and procedures can be assured and rated independently of the modelling process, software tools, computing platform and the performing organization (end user). Procedures that consider uncertainties due to different real tests results (depending on the lab performing), input parameters dispersion, etc. will be taken into account in these processes. In this project, the future potential of Virtual Testing will be investigated not only to fully substitute real testing (RT) in regulations but also to define procedures for fully virtual testing including biomechanics validation of real and virtual test devices and to evaluate transferring the process of VT to new advanced safety systems (active and pre-crash safety systems).