Reconstruction Analysis & Simulation

Capabilities

• Photogrammetry

  Exponent is often engaged months or even years after an accident has occurred. In the intervening time, physical evidence resulting from an accident can degrade, move, be repaired, replaced, or paved over, disappear, or be altogether lost. Our engineers have at their disposal a wealth of validated techniques that can be used to accurately reconstruct an incident scene, even years after the fact. 

  Exponent uses commercially available software to perform photogrammetric analyses, which in combination with three-dimensional scanning of accident sites and digital exemplar models of involved vehicles, allows us to accurately map physical evidence from incident scenes and quantify vehicle damage. The results are visually compelling and scientifically accurate and empower our clients to bring history into the present.

• Vehicle Dynamics Analysis & Impact Simulation

  Exponent's engineers use the proper tools for the job when analyzing a specific incident. Today's road vehicles measure and record a wealth of information useful to reconstructionists. Sometimes the answer to the client's question is in data preserved by onboard devices, on onboard video cameras, traffic cameras, or CCTV security cameras. When recorded information pertaining to the incident is not available or not sufficient to "tell the story," we employ fundamental scientific principles such as the conservation of energy and conservation of momentum, or more complex, computer-based methods such as 2D or 3D vehicle dynamics and collision simulations to answer the hard questions. We can utilize dynamic modeling to evaluate not only what happened in a particular accident, but also what would have been expected had some condition or driver response been different.

• Full-Scale Reconstruction Testing

  Exponent has led the industry for over 50 years in full-scale instrumented single- and multi-vehicle testing to recreate and evaluate specific accident scenarios. We have vehicle dynamicists on staff who can help plan and execute vehicle tests (with or without anthropometric test devices — ATD) to evaluate how material or component selection, or vehicle speed or trajectory affected the vehicle dynamics or occupant kinematics pre-collision, during impact, or post-collision. Our full-scale vehicle tests are performed at our Test & Engineering Center (TEC) in Phoenix, Arizona.

• Preparation of To-Scale Representations of Scenes, Vehicles & Equipment

  Using state-of-the-art data collection and scene and vehicle documentation equipment, our experts collect and preserve physical data that can prove invaluable in understanding a collision. The collected data is then used to create to-scale 2D and 3D digital or physical representations of accident sites and involved vehicles and equipment.

  These representations aid Exponent vehicle engineers in reconstructing the subject accidents and create powerful presentations of what happened and how it occurred. Our reconstruction experts and Visual Communication (VCOMM) teams work together to provide compelling demonstratives to explain the physics involved in an accident, including 2D and 3D animations of pre-impact and post-impact vehicle motions and occupant kinematics during the collision.