The aim of the work is to evaluate the possibility to reconstruct small-overlap road accidents by using the Kudlich-Slibar impulsive collision model. Small-overlap accidents are a frontal collision with a little impact surface and where the longitudinal elements of car’s frames are not involved. This is a category of road accidents that is extremely difficult to reconstruct, because of the uncertainties on the crash-parameters, such as the restitution coefficient, the direction of the contact plane, the point of impact and the friction in the contact plane. In the present work, more than 60 small-overlap crash-tests have been reconstructed using the PC-crash software, looking for similarities in the parameters. For each test the optimal parameters were found by means of an optimization algorithm, based on the technique of the design of experiments. At last, a statistical survey has been carried out to determine the average values of the parameters.

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