As we made quite clear in the June 2000 Technical Newsletter article Newton on Motorcycles, it is unwise to attempt a mathematical reconstruction of the collision phase of a vehicle vs. motorcycle collision - if your goal is to calculate the speed of the motorcycle. However, there is much that can be done in motorcycle crash reconstruction, and this example shows you how to use HVE to perform such a reconstruction. Although there are several approaches, this example illustrates the best approach - in terms of both the mechanics of the collision and the visualization. For more details, download the Technical Session from the June 2001 Technical Newsletter.

In the sample crash, a Yamaha motorcycle and a Freightliner FLD 120 collide at an intersection. The simulation is a simple, straight-forward application of EDSMAC4 to simulate the pre-collision phase of the motorcycle collision. Several additional things have been done to extend and/or enhance the simulation. For example, EDGEN was used to simulate the post-impact phase. EDGEN was also be used to illustrate various trajectories for the motorcycle driver after impact.

If you would like to explore this example further, we have made the casefile (0.2 MB zip file) available so you can work with it in your HVE software. Simply download the MotorcycleCollision.hve casefile, unzip it into your ../supportFiles/case folder, and then open the casefile within your HVE software.