Importance of impact boundary conditions and pre-crash arm position for the prediction of thoracic response to pendulum, side sled, and near side vehicle impacts

Abstract

Two contemporary finite element Human Body Models (HBMs) were subjected to five lateral impact scenarios to investigate the sensitivity of thorax response to impact scenario and pre-crash arm position. The greatest increase in chest compression (UW-HBM: +140%, GHBMC-HBM: +100%) and Viscous Criterion (UW-HBM: +467%, GHBMC-HBM: +245%) occurred when the arm was aligned with the thorax in a full vehicle impact, moderate change for sled impacts, and only a minor change in response for pendulum impacts. This study highlights the importance of including full vehicle impact boundary conditions in parametric studies of occupant response in side impacts and assessing side-impact protection.

Keywords:

• near side impact
• thoracic response
• pre-crash position
• Finite Element Method
• Human Body Model

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the National Crash Analysis Centre for the vehicle model, the Global Human Body Models Consortium for the Human Body Model, Compute Canada for computational resources, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for funding.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.