Bulb Usage Analysis for LED-Type Automotive Lighting

SAE Paper No. 2003-01-0892; SAE World Congress 2003; Detroit, MI

Author: John Steiner

The technology of exterior automotive lighting is undergoing the first major change in a half-century. Manufacturers of road vehicles, including motorcycles, are increasingly using Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamps in the place of incandescent light bulbs in exterior lighting applications, including brake lamps, turn signals and parking lamps.

Analysis of incandescent bulb filaments has been well documented ( References 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 and 7 ), and is a well-accepted practice in accident analysis. But little appears to be known about how, or even if, LED lamps respond to the forces of acceleration or direct-impact events to provide a “record” of the state of the lamp at the moment of an accident event. This project examined the responses of lighted and unlighted LEDs to both acceleration and direct impact events for indications of their state of operation when damaged.