A Computationally Efficient Finite Element Pedestrian Model for Head Safety: Development and Validation

Head injuries are often fatal or of sufficient severity to pedestrians in vehicle crashes. Finite element (FE) simulation provides an effective approach to understand pedestrian head injury mechanisms in vehicle crashes. However, studies of pedestrian head safety considering full human body response and a broad range of impact scenarios are still scarce due to the long computing time of the current FE human body models in expensive simulations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and validate a computationally efficient FE pedestrian model for future studies of pedestrian head safety. Firstly, a FE pedestrian model with a relatively small number of elements (432,694 elements) was developed in the current study. This pedestrian model was then validated at both segment and full body levels against cadaver test data. The simulation results suggest that the responses of the knee, pelvis, thorax, and shoulder in the pedestrian model are generally within the boundaries of cadaver test corridors under lateral impact loading. The upper body (head, T1, and T8) trajectories show good agreements with the cadaver data in vehicle-to-pedestrian impact configuration. Overall, the FE pedestrian model developed in the current study could be useful as a valuable tool for a pedestrian head safety study.