Research on characteristics of occupant’s chest responses in oblique impact

Abstract

The oblique impact is the second most common frontal impact, in which both the forward and lateral accelerations are applied to the occupant. It is noticed that the oblique impact is a primary source of serious injuries, in which the chest injuries are mostly fatal through the statistics of traffic accidents. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of the occupant’s chest injury in the frontal oblique impact. First, a model with a sled and a Test Human Occupant Restraint (THOR) dummy is established. Second, an acceleration curve with a peak of 9.0 g is applied to the sled. Then 11 sets of simulations with different impact angles and belt peak loads are conducted to evaluate the occupant’s chest responses. Results indicate that there is a negative correlation between belt peak force and injury outcomes, while there is a weak correlation between chest injury and impact angle. With the increase of the belt force limit, the chest deflection at Lower Left (LL) would increase by 37.9%, and the acceleration at LL would increase by 23.1%. Meanwhile, the Viscous Criterion (VC) at LL would increase by 61.4%. However, the relationship between the impact angle and injury drawn by VC and acceleration is inconsistent. Additionally, in all simulations, the maximum deflections are captured at the LL, while the maximum VCs happens at Upper Right (UR) or LL. It is demonstrated that a seatbelt with a lower peak force is friendly to the occupant’s chest under all the impact angles. This study can provide a reference to the study of chest injury in the oblique impact.