Pedestrian kinematic response to mid-sized vehicle impact

Abstract

This study examines how pedestrian anthropometry affects response kinematics when pedestrians are struck by an automobile. Seven post-mortem human surrogates were tested under identical conditions in full-scale vehicle-pedestrian impact experiments using a mid-sized sedan. The ability of a geometric scaling technique to predict the response of a mid-sized pedestrian from the responses of pedestrians of other statures was evaluated. Pedestrian kinematic response to sedan impacts was shown to be sensitive to the pelvis and hood interaction, which was largely determined by the height of the pelvis relative to the hood leading edge. The scaling method was shown to be not sufficient to predict mid-sized pedestrian response in impacts with the test vehicle used in this study.