Citation

Chinmoy P, Shigeru H, Pratap Naidu V, Vimalathithan K. 27th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV); April 3-6, 2023; Abstract #: 23-0290, pp. 13p. Washington, DC USA: US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2023 open access.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023 open access, US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

Abstract

27th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV): Enhanced and Equitable Vehicle Safety for All: Toward the Next 50 Years

https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/27/27ESV-000290.pdf

In Japan from 2000 to 2019, the number of motor vehicle occupant fatalities decreased significantly. Pedestrian road user type contributes to 37% of total traffic fatalities, the highest compared to other road user types since 2009. In pedestrian accidents, Head and chest body regions account for 51% and 40%, covering about 91% of the total AIS4+ injuries, respectively. So, head and chest protection are important elements for reducing pedestrian fatalities. At present, there are test procedures for head and lower extremities injury protection, but no test procedure exists for pedestrian chest protection. BAST has proposed a specific thorax injury prediction tool (TIPT) developed from side impact dummy ES-2. Based on their proposal, an adult chest impactor will be impacted by several predefined impact grid points covering a range from a child's lower rib height (WAD: 770mm) to a 95th_%ile male's upper rib height (WAD:1540mm). Injury criteria for TIPT were based on injury risk curves of 45 to 67 year-old adults. In this paper, the influence of different parameters of vehicles and pedestrians on chest injury using human body models (HBM) and TIPT modules are studied in detail. It can be concluded that (a) similar to the existing head injury evaluation impactors, child and adult TIPT impactors need to be different since the biomechanical characteristics are different (b) based on human body models' CAE simulation with the target generic vehicles models (GVM), the chest impact velocity is considerably lower than those recommended values of BASt and (c) it has been observed that BLE height, bumper lead upper, hood angle are the significant parameters for the chest impact velocity.