Evaluation of 6 and 10 Year-Old Child Human Body Models in Emergency Events
Journal article, 2017

Emergency events can influence a child’s kinematics prior to a car-crash, and thus its interaction with the restraint system. Numerical Human Body Models (HBMs) can help understand the behaviour of children in emergency events. The kinematic responses of two child HBMs–MADYMO 6 and 10 year-old models–were evaluated and compared with child volunteers’ data during emergency events–braking and steering–with a focus on the forehead and sternum displacements. The response of the 6 year-old HBM was similar to the response of the 10 year-old HBM, however both models had a different response compared with the volunteers. The forward and lateral displacements were within the range of volunteer data up to approximately 0.3 s; but then, the HBMs head and sternum moved significantly downwards, while the volunteers experienced smaller displacement and tended to come back to their initial posture. Therefore, these HBMs, originally intended for crash simulations, are not too stiff and could be able to reproduce properly emergency events thanks, for instance, to postural control.

Author

Laure-Lise Gras

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Safety

Isabelle Stockman

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Safety

Karin Brolin

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Safety

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

PLoS ONE

1932-6203 (ISSN) 19326203 (eISSN)

Vol. 12 1 e0170377- e0170377

Subject Categories

Mechanical Engineering

Computational Mathematics

Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Transport

Life Science Engineering (2010-2018)

Infrastructure

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0170377

More information

Latest update

3/3/2020 4