FEM-based Methodology for Crash Severity Estimation in Frontal Crash Scenarios

Abstract With the technological development of forward-looking sensors, researchers are exploring their use not only for advanced driver assistance systems but also to gain important pre-crash information. Based on this pre-crash information, if the occupant motion inside the vehicle structure can be predicted for the oncoming crash scenario, then an optimal restraint strategy can be planned before the crash. This paper introduces a two-step FEM simulation based methodology for predicting the occupant severity in head-on crash scenarios. In the first step, we simulate the vehicle level model with different impact positions and relative approach angles. The results of these simulations, linear velocities in the longitudinal and lateral direction and angular velocities (roll, pitch, and yaw) during in-crash phase are the loading conditions for next simulation step (occupant level). This step simulates the motion of the driver in different crash scenarios. In this paper, we investigate the head, neck, and chest injury risks from vehicle-to-vehicle crash both traveling at 50 kilometers per hour. Prediction of the head injury criterion, identifying the cases where additional deployment of side-airbags and discussion of injury criteria with contour plots are the main outcome of this paper.