Abstract
While the seatbelt restraint has significantly improved occupant safety, the protection efficiency still needs further enhance to reduce the consequence of the crash. Influence of seatbelt restraint loading on chest injury under 40 km/h has been tested and documented. However, a comprehensive profiling of the efficiency of restraint systems with various impact speeds has not yet been sufficiently reported. The purpose of this study is to analyse the effect of the seatbelt loadings on chest injuries at different impact speeds utilizing a high bio-fidelity human body Finite Element (FE) model. Based on the whole-body frontal sled test configuration, the current simulation is setup using a substitute of Post-Mortem Human Subjects (PMHS). Chest injury outcomes from simulations are analysed in terms of design variables, such as seatbelt position parameters and collision speed in a full factorial experimental design. These outcomes are specifically referred to strain-based injury probabilities and four-point chest deflections caused by the change of the parameters. The results indicate that impact speed does influence chest injury outcome. The ribcage injury risk for more than 3 fractured ribs will increase from around 40 to nearly 100% when the impact speed change from 20 to 40 km/h if the seatbelt positioned at the middle-sternum of this study. Great injuries to the chest are mainly caused by the change of inertia, which indicates that chest injuries are greatly affected by the impact speed. Furthermore, the rib fracture risk and chest deflection are nonlinearly correlated with the change of the seatbelt position parameters. The study approach can serve as a reference for seatbelt virtual design. Meanwhile, it also provides basis for the research of chest injury mechanism.
Highlights
Chest injury is one of the most common injuries among vehicle accident injuries
Two indexes of the rib fracture risk and the chest deflection were used as the judgments to evaluate the injury of chest caused by the parameters: the impact speed, the seatbelt angle and the seatbelt position
The four measuring points were located at Upper Right (UR), Upper Left (UL), Lower Right (LR) and Lower Left (LL) (Figure 2)
Summary
Chest injury is one of the most common injuries among vehicle accident injuries. The incidences of serious chest injuries are 5.5 and 33% in National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) and Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN). Chest injury makes up of 13% of moderate injuries in vehicle accidents (Ruan et al 2003). Rib fracture is the major and most common form of chest injuries that can result in mortality and severe morbidity (Baker et al 1974; Kent, Patrie 2005) and the location of the rib fracture may reflect the direct link between the injuries of ribcage and inner organs (Nahum, Melvin 2002). Rib fracture as well as costal cartilage fracture are generally happened in the chest injury cases
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