Evaluation of Cushioning Effect and Human Injury According to Occupant Posture and Use of Air Mat in Case of Elevator Fall

Abstract

Because of the function of facilities that transport individuals and luggage to elevated locations, poor maintenance and human errors by users and workers can result in many elevator accidents annually. In particular, given the characteristics of an elevator used by an unspecified number of people, in the event of a fall accident due to wire rope cutting, an occupant’s body may be fatally injured, thereby causing substantial human damage. To minimize human injury, it is important to reduce the relative impact speed between the car and the pit by utilizing the buffer effect according to the role of the safety device and the posture of occupants. The AIS (Abbreviated Injury Scale) is an anatomical-based coding system established by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine that classifies and describes the severity of injuries. In this study, through human injury analysis, safety device operation such as speed governor and buffer when cutting elevator wire rope, occupant’s behavior, and air mat usage were used to derive force and torque values for the injured part, and then determine the amount of impact and degree of injury to the human body using the multibody model provided by the MADYMO program and AIS by analyzing the buffering effect of the impact.