A Study on Influence of Minivan Front-End Design and Impact Velocity on Pedestrian Thorax Kinematics and Injury Risk

Thoracic injuries occur frequently in minivan-to-pedestrian impact accidents and can cause substantial fatalities. The present research work investigates the human thoracic responses and injury risks in minivan-to-pedestrian impacts, when changing the minivan front-end design and the impact velocity, by using computational biomechanics model. We employed three typical types of minivan model of different front-end designs that are quite popular in Chinese market and considered four impact velocities (20, 30, 40, and 50 km/h). The contact time of car to thorax region (CTCTR), thorax impact velocity, chest deformation, and thoracic injury risks were extracted for the investigation. The results indicate that the predicted pedestrian kinematics, injury responses, and thoracic injury risks are strongly affected by the variation of the minivan front-end design and impact velocity. The pedestrian thoracic injury risks increase with the increasing vehicle impact velocity. It is also revealed that the application of the extra front bumper is beneficial for reducing the thoracic injury risk, and a relatively flatter minivan front-end design gives rise to a higher thoracic injury risk. This study is expected to be served as theoretical references for pedestrian protection design of minivans.