Assessment of the protective performance of hood using head FE model in car-to-pedestrian collisions

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to present a method to assess the protective performance of a passenger car hood to decrease pedestrian head injuries in car-to-pedestrian collisions by using a validated human head finite element (FE) model. Three types of hoods, sandwich structure hood, multi-cone and wavilness inner-panel hoods, made of aluminium were proposed to protect the pedestrian's head. The head FE model was used to evaluate the protection performance of the proposed hood designs by modelling of head impact to the hood. The head intracranial pressure and the linear and rotational acceleration were measured using the head FE model to predict the risk of brain injury. The results indicated that the proposed hood designs showed a significant improvement in injury mitigation from simulations of the head FE model impact to the hood in the investigated passenger car.