Citation

Soni A, Chawla A, Mukherjee S, Malhotra R. Int. J. Veh. Safety 2009; 4(1): 14-28.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

10.1504/IJVS.2009.026971

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of muscle contraction on lower extremity injuries in car-pedestrian lateral impacts. Three variables, viz. height of impact, pedestrian offset with respect to car centre and impact speed, are considered. Full-scale car-pedestrian FE simulations have been performed using the full body pedestrian model with active lower extremities (PMALE) and front structures of a car model. Two pre-impact conditions of a symmetrically standing pedestrian, representing a cadaver and an unaware pedestrian, have been simulated. It is concluded that (1) with muscle contraction risk of ligament failure decreases whereas risk of bone fracture increases; (2) ligament and bone strains are dependent on the impact location; (3) chances of ligament injuries are higher when the impact occurs near the outer corner of the car; (4) risk of bone fracture increases with speed and (5) bone fracture reduces the risk of ligament failure.