A new legform impactor for evaluation of car aggressiveness in car-pedestrian accidents 2001-06-0174
The goal of the present study was to develop a new legform
impactor that accurately represents both the impact force (i.e.,
force between the leg and impacting mass)and leg kinematics in
lateral impacts simulating car-pedestrian accidents. In its
development we utilized the knee joint of the pedestrian dummy
called Polar-2 (HONDA R&D) in which the cruciate and collateral
ligaments are represented by means of springs and cables, the
geometry of the femoral condyles is simplified using ellipsoidal
surfaces, and the tibial meniscus is represented by an elastomeric
pad.
The impactor was evaluated by comparing its responses with
published experimental results obtained using postmortem human
subjects (PMHS). The evaluation was done under two conditions:
1)impact point near the ankle area (bending tests),and 2)impact
point 84 mm below the knee joint center (shearing tests). Two
impact speeds were used: 5.56 m/s and 11.11 m/s.
The responses of our impactor were reasonably close to those
observed in the experiments using PMHS in terms of both impact
force and leg shearing displacement (i.e., relative displacement
between the leg and thigh at the knee joint level in a lateral
direction). In the shearing tests, the peak values of leg shearing
displacement were greater than 30 mm.