Blog | Creating Bicycle and Motorcycle Crash Simulations with the Path Animation Tool

The Path Animation Tool is a powerful part of the Virtual CRASH 4 arsenal. Not only can this tool be used to create visualizations of accident scenarios without the need for simulation optimization, but it can also be used to guide vehicles along arbitrary paths only to then hand control of the vehicle to the simulation engine. Such functionality is particularly useful for pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle, skate, and scooter impacts. In the video that follows, the viewer is guided through the process of using the Path Animation Tool to guide a bicycle + rider system along a pre-impact trajectory. The bicycle is released from path animation control, where the simulation engine takes over its motion. A rider is attached using joint tools. This workflow is an alternative approach to using kinematics. The benefit of using the Path Animation Tool in this way, is that you easily control the exact path a vehicle takes, as well as its orientation, and the path will conform to 3D terrains. Because animation paths control rigid body objects, animated objects can be coupled to other objects using joint tools. Thus, riders can be placed on top of motorcycles and bicycles using this method.

If you’re not familiar with the Path Animation tool, we strongly recommend you read the various posts on the tool here: https://www.vcrashusa.com/vcrash-academy-path-animations. In particular, see https://www.vcrashusa.com/blog/2018/6/27/new-possibilities-with-the-path-animation-tool for detailed discussions on complex joint controls of multibodies. It’s also recommended to read: https://www.vcrashusa.com/blog/2018/6/7/building-complex-systems-with-joint-tools to better understand joint tools.

Note, as a part of the workflow shown the above video, the option to disable contacts was used for the bicycle-multibody attachment joints. It is recommended users enable this option to prevent unwanted impulse exchanges between objects being held together with joints. This will help with system stability. This feature is also discussed in the following posts: https://www.vcrashusa.com/blog/2016/7/3/making-rotating-assemblies-with-a-hinge-joint and https://www.vcrashusa.com/blog/2018/6/7/building-complex-systems-with-joint-tools.

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