Investigation of chest biomechanical response by variation of restraint loads in frontal impact
Journal article, 2020

The seatbelt restraint load is one of the primary sources of occupant chest injury. Thus, studying the different biomechanical responses of chest by varying the seatbelt loads will result in a significant improvement in seatbelt protection performance. Based on the high-biofidelity mechanical dummy model, a sled-dummy test was conducted to investigate the differences in chest injury outcomes caused by the variation of seatbelt load paths or load processes. The chest kinematics and kinetics are compared to determine the influence of load factors on these biomechanical outcomes. Results show that chest injury severity has a positive nonlinear correlation with impact speed. However, the injury risk is mainly determined by the seatbelt peak load in the chest deflection analysis. The results of this study can provide a reference to seatbelt safety design and optimization. The model and method can be used in other research works on the biomechanics of frontal impact.

load path

load types

chest injury

THOR dummy

Seatbelt

Author

Sen Xiao

Hebei University of Technology

Yanchao Qie

Hebei University of Technology

Wu Chen

Hebei University of Technology

Jikuang Yang

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Vehicle Safety

Jeff R. Crandall

University of Virginia

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering

0954-4070 (ISSN) 2041-2991 (eISSN)

Vol. 234 5 1377-1388

Subject Categories

Vehicle Engineering

DOI

10.1177/0954407019881067

More information

Latest update

4/23/2020