Improvement of lateral shoulder impact response of a multi-body pedestrian model

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe interaction of the shoulder complex of the pedestrian and the striking vehicle strongly influences the responses and injury risk of the head, neck and torso during vehicle-to-pedestrian impacts. While the current MADYMO facet pedestrian model met the shoulder force corridor provided by ISO9790, the kinematics of its shoulder complex during a lateral blunt impact has not been evaluated. In this study, this model was evaluated relative to more detailed and newly available cadaveric responses under lateral shoulder impact, and exhibited much higher shoulder impact force and displacement. To improve the biofidelity of the shoulder complex, a component level validation was performed on its upper arm model based on component-level upper arm compression test data by maximising ISO rating scores between the cadaveric and the model responses. After the improvement of the arm model, the updated pedestrian model showed improved biofidelity based on ISO rating scores on shoulder impact force, displacement and shoulder deflection under lateral shoulder impact conditions. Finally, under a 20 km/h sedan-to-pedestrian lateral impact, the 15% higher head relative impact velocity was observed for the updated pedestrian model, which demonstrated the strong influence of the shoulder complex on the pedestrian head response.