Influence of pitching and yawing during frontal passenger vehicle crash tests on driver occupant's kinematics and injury

Abstract

Vehicle safety has become a major task in the development process of passenger vehicles. Measures for occupant safety are developed by reference to different tests including legal tests and consumer tests. The different load cases for the considered frontal crash tests cause different vehicle kinematics involving all six degrees of freedom. Besides restraint systems, vehicle kinematics shows distinct influence on occupant loading. A sensitivity analysis of the dummy responses due to varied motion fractions has been performed by finite elements simulations of a well-validated simulation model. The influences of particular motion components are determined by objective assessment variables. These are well-known injury criteria as well as geometrical criteria such as distances between dummy and interior. The results of this sensitivity study can be used for additional measures in terms of occupant protection.

A Novel Technique for Modeling Vehicle Crash using Lumped Parameter Models

“…In the recent past, increasing focus on unbelted occupants to meet FMVSS 208 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) requirements has led researchers to observe that vehicle pitch and drop contributed to higher head and neck injury values. The objective of a vehicle structure is not just to absorb energy and optimize crash pulses, but also to minimize vehicle pitch and drop (Chang et al, 2006;Woitsch and Sinz, 2013). Chang et al have developed an FE model to study vehicle pitch and drop in bodyon-frame vehicles.…”