TY - JOUR PY - 2012// TI - Different factors influencing post-crash pedestrian kinematics JO - SAE International journal of passenger cars - mechanical systems A1 - Kawabe, Yoshiko A1 - Asai, Toshiyuki A1 - Murakami, Daisuke A1 - Pal, Chinmoy A1 - Okabe, Tomosaburo SP - 214 EP - 230 VL - 5 IS - 1 N2 - Pedestrian crashes are the most frequent cause of traffic-related fatalities worldwide. The high number of pedestrian accidents justifies more active research work on passive and active safety technology intended to mitigate pedestrian injuries. Post-impact pedestrian kinematics is complex and depends on various factors such as impact speed, height of the pedestrian, front-end profile of the striking vehicle and pedestrian posture, among others. The aim of this study is to investigate the main factors that determine post-crash pedestrian kinematics. The injury mechanism is also discussed. A detailed study of NASS-PCDS (National Automotive Sampling System - Pedestrian Crash Data Study, US, 1994-1998), showed that the vehicle-pedestrian interaction in frontal crashes can be categorized into four types: "Thrown forward", "Wrapped position", "Slid to windshield" and "Passed over vehicle". A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed and 11 independent factors were identified for study from a set of 26 variables, as defined in NASS-PCDS. Pedestrian-vehicle size ratio and the impact speed are the two most influential factors that determine post crash pedestrian kinematics. However, the standing posture of a taller pedestrian can also cause rotational movement around the local Z axis, leading to a face-up/down mode of head-face impact before falling on the hood. The findings from the NASS-PCDS study were also confirmed and verified with the help of numerical simulations performed using two modified JAMA human FE models. An adult model (male, 175cm and 72kg) and a properly scaled child model (6 years old, 120cm and 21kg) were effectively utilized to investigate the post-crash kinematics in different conditions.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1946-3995 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.4271/2012-01-0271 ID - ref1 ER -