Application of Momentum-Exchange-Impact-Damper to a horizontal collision problem

Most of conventional structure safety designs for collision are dampers, such as controlled plastic deformation, the energy of collision is released. However this method cannot be reused because it works at expends of destroy of the structure. In this paper, a novel collision safety method based on Momentum-Exchange-Impact-Damper (MEID) system is applied. With MEID, the impact of the controlled object is reduced by transferring part of its momentum to an additional mass. Thus this reusable system reduces the acceleration and the rebound distance. This paper adopt a simplistic vehicle model with MEID system as a controlled object example. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified by simulations and experiments.