Luis Martínez Sáez

COMPARACIÓN NUMÉRICA DEL HIC (HEAD INJURY CRITERION) EN CONDICIONES DE ATROPELLO A DIFERENTES VELOCIDADES CON UN VEHÍCULO TIPO SEDÁN

An injury mechanism is defined as a description of the mechanical and physiological changes that result in anatomical and functional damage in the human being. The mechanisms of head injury have been studied through the use of animal experiments, PMHS (Post Mortem Human Subjects), physical models and models developed using Finite Elements.

Behaviour of high bumper vehicles in pedestrian scenarios with full finite element human models

The European pedestrian regulations (formerly Directive 2003/102 and currently Regulation 2009/631 and recently modified by Commission Regulation [EU] No. 2011/459) have always approached the protection of lower extremities in pedestrian accidents with tests in the front part of the vehicle using rigid impactors. This approach offers a lot of advantage regarding the repeatability, robustness and reproducibility that these tests need but on the contrary decouple the injury occurrence through the different body areas. It is widely supported to approach pedestrian head protection and lower extremities protection in separate tests; however, there is not such consensus in decoupling pedestrian lower leg injuries from the upper leg injuries, especially in the case of high bumper vehicles. The objective of this paper is to look into the details of this close dependence through a set of simulations with THUMS 50th percentile male pedestrian finite element human model impacted by a wide set of high bumper vehicles. The analysis of both the kinematics and the injury occurrence in these scenarios has shown the strong coupling between the upper and lower leg injuries for this vehicle fleet, requiring therefore assessing both type of injuries at the same time.