Research on lower extremity injury characteristics of elderly pedestrians under different impact loads

Abstract

The safety protection of elderly pedestrians has always been the focus of passive safety research in car collision accidents. Lower limb protection efficiency for pedestrians is lower than occupants inside the vehicle. In particular, lower limb injuries account for a large proportion of pedestrian accident injuries. This study aims to determine the trend and primary characteristics of pedestrian lower limb injuries under the different impact speeds and impact angles. The elderly lower limb model based on Chinese structure is used. Then, the control variable method is used to simulate the collision process with four impact speeds and three impact angles, and the influence of the impact load difference on the characteristics is analysed. Results show that in low-speed collisions, the most vulnerable part of the elderly pedestrians’ lower limbs is the knee joint, and the collision speed is positively correlated with the injuries level of lower limbs. In a vehicle-pedestrian collision, the load from the side direction of the limbs is slightly higher than the load from the front direction for the elderly. The injury risk caused by the load from the inner side of the lower limb is higher than that from the outer side collision. The research results can provide a reference for the study on the protection of the lower limb.