Checking the validity of the simulation for a vehicle test collision Dan-Marius Mustață, BSc 1 , Attila-Iuliu Gönczi, PhD 2 , Ioana Ionel, PhD 3 , Ramon Mihai Balogh, PhD 4 1 MSc student, Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania 2 Senior Lecturer, Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania 3 Professor, Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania 4 Assistant Lecturer, Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania Abstract. Road accident reconstruction is a very complex task, which is more and more based on computer simulation of the vehicles’ motion (kinematic and kinetic approach) and of the collision between vehicles, pedestrians and/or dif- ferent other objects. The research presented in the paper is focused on the validation of a vehicle collision simulation programme, namely Virtual Crash ver. 4.0, based on a real test collision. The test collision refers to test nr. 358 achieved by DSD GmbH in Austria, in 2018, and consisted of an experiment during which a passenger car hits, at high speed, a stationary truck. The paper focuses on the comparison be- tween the crash results and the results obtained from a numerical simulation, by using the Virtual Crash software. The conclusion of the validation is that the positioning errors (the linear and angular) are well under the acceptable values for road accident reconstruction. First of all, it is important to emphasize, that the determined value of the impact speed in the simulation (90,123 km/h) was practically the same as the real speed (90,6 km/h), which is a remarkably good simulated value (the relative error is only -0.53%) and it could be related to the measurement errors of the speed. In a case of the reconstruction of a real accident, the errors could be much higher, because of the errors of the investigation on site and the lack of precise data re- lated to many parameters which influence the reconstruction. The research is part of the MSc thesis of the main author. Keywords: accident reconstruction software, validation, Virtual Crash 1 Introduction In the automotive industry, one of the highest concerns is vehicle crashworthiness. Rat- ing systems, like Euro NCAP and national control bodies like National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the USA, are regulating all safety aspects, which automotive industry companies have to comply with. [1] [2] A crash test is represented as a destructive test, performed in order to ensure safe design standards in crashworthiness and crash compatibility for vehicles or their