A Research On FE Dummy Injuries For Vehicle Side Impact

While bringing people convenience for modern life, vehicles also bring some negative effects on the society, such as environmental pollution, energy crisis and security risks. At present, the vehicle safety has been concerned by all countries in the world. As the road conditions in China are special, and the plane cross-form is the major pattern of traffic roads, side impact has been the most important forms of traffic collisions, and the number of injuries accounts for the first of the total number. Therefore, in our current situation, it is very important to research the side impact safety and the protection for the occupants in automotive side impact accidents.According to "GB 20071-2006 car side impact occupant protection" standard, the mobile deformable barrier finite element model was established and validated. Based on the 3D geometry model of one productive automobile, the finite element simulation model of the vehicle and restraint system model (seats and seat belts, etc.) had been built up using the software HyperMesh. Using ES2 finite element dummy model instead of multi-body dummy modle, more accurate research could be conduct in side impact dummy biomechanical response. With the combination of side impact dummy, mobile deformable barrier and vehicle modle, the side impact FE model had been established. The effectiveness of side impact model was validated according to the comparison of system energy analysis, body’s deceleration and dummy injury to the test results.The distance between the dummy abdomen and the vehicle interior handrails, seat vertical displacement were chosen as experimental variables, and experimental design was set up by using a full factorial experimental design approach. With the simulation results the dummy injury values for every program could be obtained. The results show that:changes in these experimental variables have great impact on head injury and chest injury, and little influence on the abdomen and pelvis injury. When the distance between dummy pelvis and interior handrail increases, seat position moves back, the dummy head injury increases and the chest injury decreases. On the contrary, when the distance between dummy pelvis and interior handrail reduces, the dummy head injury increases; seat position moves forward, the dummy head injury decreases.Some side impact simulations were conducted using the models with/without seat belt. By contrasting the dummy injuries found in the 20km/h,40km/h,50km/h, 60km/h collision speed, the results show that the difference of the dummy chest, abdomen and pelvis injury value is very small. So the current used three-point seat belt has little effect on the occupant protection in side impact.