Numerical Analysis of Occupant Head Injuries in Impacts with Dump Truck Panel

The human head will inevitably impact on the panel causing injury due to the inertia during dump truck collisions or emergency braking. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the effects of panel design parameters on occupant head injuries via simulations using finite element (FE) models of a human head and a dump truck cockpit. Special focus was applied to understand how panel type (soft and hard), elastic modulus of the filling and frame, and the fixing distance for the soft panel could affect head injuries in head-to-panel impacts under different impact conditions (impact speed and location). Simulation results show that a soft panel is beneficial for head protection in impacts with the truck instrument panel, and a soft panel using a lower filling elastic modulus, lower frame elastic modulus, and longer fixing distance is helpful for head injury prevention. The findings also indicate that the head peak acceleration and maximum skull stress are more sensitive to the fixing distance and elastic modulus of frame than elastic modulus of the filling of the panel. Moreover, these trends are not affected by changing the impact speed and impact location. The findings of this study suggest that a safer panel design for head injury prevention should firstly have a long fixing distance and then followed by using softer filling and frame materials.