Discrete element method simulation of high-speed vehicle collisions with road barrier systems

The behavior of road or perimeter protection barriers under vehicle impact are usually investigated based on crash tests and finite element (FE) numerical approaches, which are ether expensive or time-consuming. Several studies have proposed to reduce the computation time of the numerical analysis by substituting the complex FE models of vehicles using simplified mass–spring–damper system models. However, these models have drawbacks since consideration of different vehicle impact angles is difficult and they are unable to correctly simulate the risk of high-speed vehicle collision running over the barrier. In this paper, a new approach is proposed to simulate the collision of vehicles with barriers based on the discrete element method (DEM). Here, to save computation time only a handful of 3D non-spherical particles are used to represent the barrier and vehicle. These particles are generated based on the super-quadric function, which is capable of generating a variety of shapes needed for the model. The contact detection and evaluation are carried out based on discrete function representation of the particles with uniform sampling. The bond between two discrete elements is defined using a nonlinear cohesive beam model since the distance between the elements is relatively large. The simulation results obtained based on this approach are more accurate and complete than the simplified mass–spring models and computationally more efficient than the FE model.