Title: A study of boundary conditions for pedestrian thorax impact test

Authors: Yongcheng Long; Yu Liu; Yu Xiao; Zhisheng Ruan; Zhi Xiao; Guanjun Zhang; Jing Huang

Addresses: State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Vehicle Safety Technology, Chongqing, 401122, China; China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd., Chongqing, 401122, China ' State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Vehicle Safety Technology, Chongqing, 401122, China; China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd., Chongqing, 401122, China ' Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technology for Vehicle, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China ' Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technology for Vehicle, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China ' Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technology for Vehicle, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China ' Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technology for Vehicle, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China ' Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technology for Vehicle, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China

Abstract: Thorax injury is one of the main injuries during pedestrian impacts, and it is important to determine the boundary conditions for pedestrian thorax impactor tests. A series of virtual cases were built up to simulate the vehicle-pedestrian impact accidents. Then, the kinematic process was analysed during the vehicle-pedestrian impacts, and thorax impact parameters were extracted. Finally, the statistical characteristics of these impact parameters were obtained for thorax impactor tests. The results show that vehicle type affects the pedestrian impact kinematics and thorax impact parameters significantly. The range of thorax wrap-around distance is 928~1915 mm and 1018~1762 mm during sedan-pedestrian impact and SUV-pedestrian impact respectively. The average thorax impact speeds are about 5.8 m/s and 4.8 m/s in sedan-pedestrian impact and in SUV-pedestrian impact respectively. The average thorax impact velocity angles are 26.8° and 19.5° respectively. These results can provide the effective reference data for pedestrian thorax impactor tests.

Keywords: pedestrian impact; thorax; simulation; MADYMO; boundary condition; wrap-around distance; impact velocity; impact angle; statistics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVSMT.2024.140495

International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing, 2024 Vol.18 No.2, pp.120 - 133

Received: 14 Dec 2023
Accepted: 26 Feb 2024
Published online: 20 Aug 2024 *

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