Development of Economical Vehicle Model for Pedestrian-Friendly Front-End Profile Study

Abstract

An economical and deformable, hybrid model is developed for studying the effect of vehicle geometry on pedestrian fall kinematics and associated head injury. A simplified structure consisting of Finite Element surfaces and a Multi-body windshield is built using a series of iterative and non-iterative steps. The primary focus is not so much the stiffness characteristics of the structure, but rather the fall pattern and kinematic data of the pedestrian due solely to the vehicle front-end shape. Comprehensive validation is carried out whereby the fidelity of the model is reviewed for pedestrian crash kinematics and injury criteria as well as piecewise vehicle parts impact tests. The model is shown to hold up acceptably well against benchmarked values especially for the former, whereby very close head injury criteria values are obtained at identical impact locations. The model's notable features are its economical computational processing time and ease of modification.