Design and development of side underrun protection devices

The aim of this study is to review the existing literature and applications in side under-run protection devices and to submit new design propsals. Every year, thousands of people are killed or injured by the crashes when heavy trucks are involved in. To prevent this problem, front and rear under-run protection devices are a requirement of law for heavy vehicles in many regions of the world and lateral under-run devices are also defined by most regions. This study starts with a review of literature on frontal, rear and side under-run accidents and statistics and continues with regulations in major world regions. The study points out that staying within the limits mandated by laws under-run protection design has significant effect on damage to vulnerable road users on potential crashes and the potential for creating economic efficiency through these devices are also of value for the future. The current side under run protection device designs are reviewed and explained in detail. The advantages and disadvantages of them are compared. Besides safety factors, economy and environment friendly effects of side underrun protections are explained by several research results. Finally, it is given the insights about the future direction of under-run protection design and what business implications are there for the industry in the future. The new honeycomb structure side under-run protection is designed in NX and tested under the loads by using finite element method in Ansys. According to the allowed deformation, weight optimization is applied on the design. Alternatively, other material and it's design is tested under the same loads. After that, the results are compared with each other to find out an optimum design for manufacturer. In addition to mechanical improvement, weak points to improve on the visibility issues are investigated and integrated side marking system design was put forward, which can sense the approaching road users and warn the driver.