Pedestrian injury severity in the event of a collision with a truck: are energy absorbing adaptive deformable fronts suitable?

Abstract

It is well known that adaptive deformable fronts attached to trucks reduce pedestrian injury. However, the suitability of these frontal attachment devices from a holistic point of view, considering both primary and secondary impacts, is questioned in this paper. Using head-injury-criteria index, the effects of pedestrian gait and different closing speeds are considered for evaluation of numerous truck-pedestrian side and rear impact situations. Numerical simulations, considering coupled rigid and deformable-body dynamics, have been carried out in this paper to arrive at conclusions. For primary side impact scenario DEA frontal attachment provides a performance improvement specifically for 0% gait; however, the performance improvement is non-uniform for other gait cycles. For primary rear impact scenarios, it is observed that DEA is not a useful alternative at all. For secondary collision scenarios (involving both side and rear impacts) DEA is not at all an effective means for performance improvement.