An experimental comparison of the pedestrian safety performances of a spring actuator and a pyrotechnic actuator for deploying an active hood lift system

Abstract

This research experimentally investigates the pedestrian safety performance of an active hood lift system of a passenger vehicle by adopting two different actuators: a spring actuator and a pyrotechnic actuator (gunpowder). After briefly introducing the working principle of the active hood lift system with the two different actuators, experiments to measure the deployment time of the system are carried out to evaluate the pedestrian safety. Subsequently, headform impact tests on the hood are performed to generate the impact force, and hence the mitigation of pedestrian injuries is investigated for the two different actuators. By comparing the measured performances obtained from both actuators, it is shown that the pyrotechnic actuator can provide a faster deployment system time. It is also identified that the spring actuator can provide a better safety performance for protecting adult pedestrians, whereas the safety performance of the pyrotechnic actuator is relatively low. Consequently, the pyrotechnic actuator is redesigned and manufactured to improve its safety performance and tested again. Then, it is shown that the modified pyrotechnic actuator can provide a better protection effect for an adult pedestrian than the spring actuator can.