Effect of vehicle steering maneuvers on kinematics and head injury risks of cyclists via finite element modeling analysis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of a striking vehicle steering maneuvers on the kinematics and head injury risk of cyclists using the finite element (FE) modeling method. Twenty-six accident cases with video records were analyzed to define the range of the striking vehicle yaw angular velocity just before the collisions by the vehicle occurred. Parametric studies of the vehicle steering maneuvers were conducted by FE simulations using the Total Human Model of Safety (THUMS) occupant (ver. 4.0) and bicycle models at four vehicle yaw angular velocities (0, 1, 1.5 and 2 rad/s) and five impact locations (−400, −200, 0, 200 and 400 mm relative to the striking vehicle centerline). The cyclists’ kinematics and head impact conditions, as well as the injury parameters of the HIC and CSDM were calculated to assess the head injury risks. The results show that the vehicle yaw angular velocities could affect the head wrap around distances (WADs) and head impact locations, as well as the head impact conditions. The Head Injury Criterion (HIC) and cumulative strain damage measure (CSDM) were higher with vehicle yaw angular velocities in most cases. That outcome could predict a higher brain injury risk compared to results without a steering maneuver. The research illustrates that the vehicle steering maneuvers could influence the cyclist head injury risk and provides basic theoretical knowledge for preventing the cyclists’ injury risk.

Keywords:

• Cyclist impact simulations
• Steering maneuver
• Finite element analysis
• Head injury risks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No: 51775466, 51605407); Fujian Provincial Science Foundation for distinguished young scholars (Project No: 2019J06022) and the Science & Technology Innovation Project of Fujian Province, China (Project No. 2016H2003).