New Aspects of Pedestrian Protection Loading and Injury Pattern in Simulated Pedestrian Accidents

The paper presents a report about car pedestrian impact simulations. The front of a production car, which was mounted on a platform moving on rails was used as impact vehicle. The test subjects were eleven unembalmed post mortem human subjects (PMHS) in the age range of 19 to 78 years, and the Hybrid II-P dummy. The test speeds ranged from 23 to 41 km/h. Accelerations of head, thorax and abdomen were measured on the test subject as well as at the inside of both the knee and the ankle of the impacted leg. High speed films were taken from the side view.

In eight cases we noticed open tibia and fibula fractures of the impacted leg; usually associated with higher impact velocity or the age of the test subject; in one additional case a scapular fracture occurred at a collision velocity of 41 km/h. In 6 cases we observed vertebral column injuries of AIS 1, in two cases of AIS 2, and in one case of AIS 3. In no case did pelvic-, thoracic (skeletal) and skull fractures occur.

The impact trajectories of Hybrid-II and PMHS are similar at a collision velocity of 23km/h. At higher collision velocities significant differences exist; the head impact points on the hood in PMHS tests are considerably furtherback than in the Hybrid-II-dummy tests. The injury mechanics of the PMHS tests is described and a comparison between the loadings in the various veloctiy ranges is made.