The Study of Bus Superstructure Strength Based on

Rollover Test Using Body Sections

Guosheng Zhang, Xuewen Zhang, and Bin Liu

Key Laboratory of Operation Safety Technology on Transport Vehicles Ministry of

Communication, PRC, Research Institute of Highway Ministry of Communications, Beijing
100088, China
gs.zhang@rioh.cn

Abstract. Taking a full load bus as the research object, the finite element
analysis theory is applied to build the finite element model of the bus and the
numerical simulation environment of the structural strength of the superstructure.
According to the ECE R66 equivalent authentication method, gravity center
position of the bus is calculated, the rollover test of bus body section is carried
out. The deformation of the superstructure and its invasion to residual space of
passengers are evaluated. Comparing the rollover test result with the numerical
simulation result, it can be found that there is a good agreement between the two
results. On this basis, the energy-absorbing situation of the side wall pillars
during the rollover process is studied and evaluated. The results show that the
body section of bus is complied with the regulatory requirements; its structural
safety characteristic is good. This design method of the rollover crash safety has
important significance to research and development of manufacturer.

Keywords: Bus, Superstructure strength, Body section, Residual space.

1 Introduction
With the prosperity of the domestic market and the rapid development of highways, the
number of bus continues to grow rapidly, following by the frequent occurrence of
traffic accident, especially occurrence of road accidents such as cluster killed and
cluster wounded and so on, resulting in extremely bad social impacts. Relevant
government departments and people concern much about this situation.
Although the topic is the research focus currently, and it has important practical
significance, because of fierce commercial competition among manufacturers, various
reasons such as technology related to secrecy .etc, the relevant research output is still
rare. In this paper, according to ECE R66 regulations equivalent authentication method,
a finite element model of nine-meter full load bus is built. Using the method of
combining body section rollover test with numerical simulation, energy absorbing of
the side wall pillars during the rollover test is studied, and the deformation of the
superstructure and its invasion to residual space of passengers are evaluated. The
results have important guiding significance and application value on superstructure
strength design of bus.

D. Jin and S. Lin (Eds.): Advances in MSEC Vol. 2, AISC 129, pp. 315322.
springerlink.com Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
316 G. Zhang, X. Zhang, and B. Liu

2 The Superstructure Strength of Bus

Many countries take the bus rollover test as a mandatory certification program of
imported bus, requiring the superstructure of bus have sufficient strength. The ECE
R66 regulation offers five ways to detect the superstructure strength when the bus
rollovers: (1) rollover test; (2) rollover test using body sections; (3) quasi- static loading
test of body sections; (4) quasi-static calculation based on testing of components; (5)
computer simulation of rollover test of complete vehicles.
The fundamental idea of the regulation is that bus manufacturers can choose among
the above-mentioned five test methods, because the last four methods are equivalent to
the first one, the standard rollover test. GB/T 17578-1998 provisions on strength of the
superstructure of bus, Australia ADR59/00 and South Africa SANS 1563, are cited
from the ECE R66 the bus rollover test part. The ECE R66 regulation requires that the
superstructure of the vehicle shall have the sufficient strength to ensure that the residual
space during and after the rollover test on complete vehicle is unharmed. That means no
part of the vehicle which is outside the residual space at the start of the test shall intrude
into the residual space during the test. No part of the residual space shall project outside
the contour of the deformed structure. Specification requirements are detailed in
document [1].

3 Determination of the Centre of Gravity of the Vehicle

In this paper, the nine-meter full load bus in the stage of research and development of
company serves as research object. The reference and the total energy to be absorbed in
the rollover test directly depend on the position of the vehicles centre of gravity
position. Therefore, its determination should be as accurate as practical [1].
The longitudinal position (l1)of the centre of gravity relative to the centre of the
contact point of the front wheels is given by:

(P3 + P4 ) L1 + (P5 + P6 ) L 2
l1 = (1)
Ptota l
where: Pi is reaction load on the load cell; PTotal is unladen kerb mass or total effective
vehicle mass, as appropriate Li is the distance from centre of wheel on 1st axle to centre
of wheel on (i+1)th axle, if fitted.
The transverse position (t) of the vehicle's centre of gravity relative to its
longitudinal vertical centre plane is given by:

T T T 1
t = (P1 P2 ) 1 + (P3 P4 ) 2 + (P5 P6 ) 3 (2)
2 2 2 Ptotal
where: Ti is distance between the centers of the footprint of the wheel(s) at each end of
the ith axle.
The Study of Bus Superstructure Strength Based on Rollover Test Using Body Sections 317

Fig. 1. The centre gravity

The height of the centre of gravity (h0) shall be determined by tilting the vehicle
longitudinally and using individual load-cells at the wheels of two axles. The support
structures shall be sufficiently tall to generate a significant angle of inclination (>
20) for the vehicle. The height of the vehicle centre of gravity is given by [1][2]:
H F +F
h 0 = r + 1 tan(arcsin ) l1 L1 3 4 (3)
L1 Ftotal
where, r is height of wheel centre (on first axle) above the load cell top surface; Ftotal is
unladen kerb mass or total effective vehicle mass.
The transverse position (t) is 23.4 mm, the longitudinal distance from the centre line
of front axle (a) is 2903.4 mm, the height of the vehicle center of gravity (Hs) is 1036
mm.
318 G. Zhang, X. Zhang, and B. Liu

4 Analysis of the Bus Superstructure Using FEM and Results

This paper uses the finite element model of bus components based on the CAD model,
which imports LS-DYNA into Hypermesh to mesh and assemble [3][4], building the
numerical simulation environment of bus superstructure strength. The structure
includes the body frame, chassis, wheels general and tilting platform, body parts such
as glass, skin, interior parts, seats, batteries and air conditioning which are equivalent to
the distribution of mass in the corresponding position, to ensure that deviation of
gravity center height and height of the complete vehicle in finite element model is less
than 0.02 m. The finite element model of the bus and numerical simulation
environment is shown in figure 4, in which the finite element model including 133,431
elements, 131,080 nodes. Analysis model defines residual space in accordance with test
requirements of ECE R66 regulation, which is conducted to the reference of body
deformation to determine whether it meets the requirements.
The superstructure of the designed bus to be analyzed consists of eight closed bays
that are accommodated from the front to back of the bus, and the bays from the front to
the gravity center of the bus are called front bays, while those from the gravity centre
to the back of the bus are called back bays. In analysis it is assumed that elastic
deformations are negligibly small. Deformations obtained in analysis, which occurred
in all bays of the modeled bus after rollover simulation, are determined as follows:

Table 1. Deformation of closed bays unit: m

Bays Front side Bays Rear side

1 d1=0.70 5 d5=0.93
2 d2=0.68 6 d6=1.00
3 d3=0.74 7 d7=1.04
4 d4=0.83 -- ----------
Fig. 4. Numerical simulation environment

5 Rollover Test of Bus Body Section

In this paper, the superstructure section of the bus to be tested is abutted on the third and
the fourth frame bearer. The simulation analysis shows that the total energy absorbed
by body section is 5.46kJ. The rollover test of a body section is carried out on the same
way as the standard rollover test with a complete vehicle. The body section have the
same position, same the centre of gravitys height on the tilting platform as that of the
complete vehicle. The body section is equipped with residual space indicator to prove
that during the rollover test residual space is unharmed[5][6].
The rollover test of real section structure is executed by a bus manufacturer
according to the conditions which are defined by ECE R66 regulation. The body
section is located on a rotational tilt platform, and the platform is lifted up by a crane.
The body section structure has the weight of 746 kg about 8.14 % of bus mass, and the
free dropping begins after the center of gravity moves out of the hinge point.
The Study of Bus Superstructure Strength Based on Rollover Test Using Body Sections 319

As the result of rollover test, the deformation of the superstructure doesnt invade
the residual space of passengers. The fall of the center of gravity of body section is
about 0.83 m at the end of the roll-over. By means of this value, the energy absorbed by
the section rolled-over in the test is determined by equation (4) as EF3=6.08KJ.
E F3 = mgh f (4)
Comparing the rollover test result with the numerical simulation result, it can be
found that there is a good agreement between the two results. The absorbed energy of
other bus section can be calculated by equation (5):

Ej=E3 (dj/d3) j=1,2,4,5,6,7 (5)

Fig. 5. Body section rollover test

The energy that would be absorbed by every body section was determined as in Table 2.

Table 2. The absorbed energy of every body section unit: KJ

Front side Rear side

EF1=5.75 ER5=7.62
EF2=5.62 ER6=8.20
EF3=5.46 ER7=8.57
EF4=6.84
EF,Total=24.27 ER,Total=24.27

therefore, E Total = E Fi + E Ri =48.653 KJ.

320 G. Zhang, X. Zhang, and B. Liu

6 Energy Absorption of Bus Structure

According to ECE R66 regulation, assuming suspension system is rigid fixed without
considering other energy loss, the total energy to be absorbed in a roll-over test can be
determined by equation (6):

W 2 W Hs
E T = 0.75M g + Hs 2 H 2 0.8 2 + 0.8 (6)
2 2H H


Where M is the unladen kerb mass of vehicle (kg); W is the overall width of the
vehicle (m); H is the height of the vehicle (m), Hs is the height of the centre of gravity of
the unladen vehicle (m). Therefore, ET=45.4KJ [7][8][9].
The primary body deformation shows the deformation of the pillar. The energy is
absorbed by the pillar as the deformation energy. In accordance with the technical
requirements of bus, the energy absorbed by the pillar of superstructure during the
rollover should be evaluated by equation (7).

n
E Total = E i > E T (a)
i =1

n
E F,Total = E iF 0.4E T (b)
i =1

p
E R,Total = E iR 0.4E T (c)
i =1

n
(7)
(E iF L if )
LF = i =1
n
0.4l F (d)
E
i =1
iF

(E iR L ir )
LR = i =1
p
0.4l R (e)
E
i =1
iR
The Study of Bus Superstructure Strength Based on Rollover Test Using Body Sections 321

Where, Ei is the absorbed energy by the ith pillar; EiF is the declare amount of energy
that can be absorbed by the ith bay forward of the centre of gravity of the vehicle; EiR is
the declare amount of energy that can be absorbed by the ith pillar to the rear of the

centre of gravity of the vehicle Lif is the distance from the centre of gravity of the

vehicle of the ith pillar forward of the centre of gravity Lir is the distance from the
centre of gravity of the vehicle of the ith pillar rearward of the centre of gravity.

Table 4. Checking of technical requirement

Conditions Checking Regulatory requirements

a 48.653 kJ > 45.40 kJ Yes
b 24.27 kJ > 18.16 kJ Yes
c 24.383 kJ > 18.16 kJ Yes
d 2.61 m > 1.96 m Yes
e 2.20 m > 1.57 m Yes

From the results we can be seen, the energy absorbed in all superstructure section is
7 to 36% higher than the required values and thus the superstructure of the designed bus
fulfils the Regulation conditions. In addition, the calculated values LF and LR meet the
requirements.

7 Conclusion
In this paper, the rollover test of the body section of a bus is performed according to
ECE R66 regulation and the approximate values of the displacements at the main
pillars are obtained. Then, with these values the energy absorbed by main pillars is
calculated. Additionally, the modeled superstructure of the bus is analyzed so that the
energy every bus section absorbs is determined. By means of the results obtained, it is
concluded that the results of the rollover test of the bus body section can be approached
by finite element analyses.

Acknowledgement. This research is supported by National Key Technology R&D

Program (Grant No.2009BAG13A04) and Ministry of Transportation Western
Construction Projects (Grant No.2009318000043) and Research Institute of Highway
of Transport Basic Science Research Project (Grant No.2010-1004, 2010-1026).

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