TY - JOUR PY - 2017// TI - Head protection with cyclist helmet in impact against vehicle A-pillar JO - International journal of crashworthiness A1 - Mizuno, Koji A1 - Ito, Daisuke A1 - Oida, Keiji A1 - Kobayashi, Goichi A1 - Han, Yong SP - 322 EP - 331 VL - 22 IS - 3 N2 - In vehicle-cyclist collisions, the head of cyclists impacts frequently against the windshield and the A-pillar of the vehicle. Accident analyses show that the head injury risk is high in impacts with stiff A-pillars. In this research, the head protection with cyclist helmets in impacts against the A-pillar was investigated from experiments and finite element (FE) analyses. The headform impact tests were conducted using the pedestrian headform with and without a cyclist helmet. In the A-pillar impact at 35 km/h, the HIC reduced substantially from without helmet (4815) to with helmet (3000) though it was far above the injury acceptance level (1000). The head protection by helmets in impacts against A-pillars might be limited because of high impact velocities of the head and A-pillar stiffness. The FE simulations of the headform impacts indicated that the helmet liner deformed locally and bottomed-out in the A-pillar impacts, whereas the A-pillar deformation was small. In the FE analysis of a human head model with a capping helmet, the skull fracture did not occur but the brain strain was large. From a simple model of the head acceleration in the A-pillar impact, it was shown that the helmet liner has little effect on the HIC, whereas a deforming A-pillar with a force level of 5-7 kN could reduce the HIC of the head with helmets less than 1500. © 2016 Informa - Taylor & Francis Group.

KEYWORDS: Bicycles; Bicyclists; Bicycling

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1358-8265 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13588265.2016.1259952 ID - ref1 ER -