Citation

Asanuma H, Ikeda M, Yanaoka T, Takahashi Y. Trans. Soc. Automot. Eng. Jpn. 2013; 44(6): 1427-1432.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan)

DOI

10.11351/jsaeronbun.44.1427

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Although the evaluation of pedestrian safety performance of vehicles required by regulations and new car assessment programs (NCAP) must have contributed to the reduction of pedestrian casualties, their real-world relevance has not been fully clarified. One way to develop further understanding of real-world pedestrian accidents is to reconstruct a variety of accident scenarios dynamically using computational models. Investigations using a simplified vehicle model that allows changes of vehicle stiffness characteristics in a systematic manner are effective means of reproducing various types of accidents. The baseline simplified vehicle model developed in this study consisted of four parts: the windshield, hood, bumper, and lower part of the bumper. The hood and windshield with relatively large areas were divided into smaller areas, and different stiffness characteristics were assigned to them. In addition, models without dividing the hood and windshield were developed for comparison purposes. These simplified vehicle models were made to collide at 40 km/h with a human model, and the pelvis and lower limb injury measures and full-body kinematics were compared. The results showed that the division of the hood and windshield along with the application of local stiffness distributions significantly improved the representation of pedestrian full-body trajectories and pelvis and lower limb injury measures.

Language: ja

Keywords

accident reconstruction/accident re-creation; pedestrian detection/protection; safty; Simplified vehicle model