Investigation of traffic accidents involving seated pedestrians using a finite element simulation-based approach
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ArticleDate
2022-05-04Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/676674
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Pedestrians who use wheelchairs (seated pedestrians) report 36% - 75% higher mortality rates than standing pedestrians in car-to-pedestrian collisions but the cause of this mortality is unknown. This is the first study to investigate the cause of seated pedestrian mortality in vehicle impacts using finite element simulations. In this study a manual wheelchair model was developed using geometry taken from publicly available CAD data, and was tested to meet ISO standards. The GHBMC 50th percentile male simplified occupant model was used as the seated pedestrian and the EuroNCAP family car and sports utility vehicle models were used as the impacting vehicles. The seated pedestrian was impacted by the two vehicles at three different locations on the vehicle and at 30 and 40 km/h. In 75% of the impacts the pedestrian was ejected from the wheelchair. In the rest of the impacts, the pedestrian and wheelchair were pinned to the vehicle and the pedestrian was not ejected. The underlying causes of seated pedestrian mortality in these impacts were head and brain injury. Life-threatening head injury risks (0.0% - 100%) were caused by the ground-pedestrian contact, and life-threatening brain injury risks (0.0 - 97.9%) were caused by the initial vehicle-wheelchair contact and ground-pedestrian contact. Thoracic and abdominal compression reported no risks of life-threatening injuries, but may do so in faster impacts or with different wheelchair designs. Protective equipment such as the wheelchair seatbelt or personal airbag may be useful in reducing injury risks but future research is required to investigate their efficacy.Citation
Grindle, D., Balubaid, A., & Untaroiu, C. (2022). Investigation of traffic accidents involving seated pedestrians using a finite element simulation-based approach. Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10255842.2022.2068349Sponsors
Ahmed Balubaid was sponsored by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia through a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program at Virginia Tech, USA; Summer 2021. Global Human Body Models Consortium.Publisher
Informa UK LimitedAdditional Links
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10255842.2022.2068349ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/10255842.2022.2068349