Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Frank Pintar
Abstract
In 2021, there were nearly 7500 pedestrians killed in traffic crashes in the U.S., the highest since 1981. Since the year 2000, Europe and Japan have adopted pedestrian crash protection programs for vehicles and have seen a decline in pedestrian fatalities; the U.S. has not yet adopted pedestrian crash protection and has seen an increase in pedestrian fatalities in that same time. European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) outlines a detailed procedure for evaluations of new vehicles for pedestrian safety through headform, upper legform, and lower legform tests. Euro NCAP also uses generic finite element (FE) front-end vehicle models, representative of different vehicle classes, for safety ratings and analysis of pedestrian kinematics. While these models are useful, they are not always applicable to the U.S., because they represent the European fleet and do not account for variability in stiffness across the hood and bumper. There are no publicly available FE models representative of a U.S. pickup truck/large SUV that are validated from pedestrian injury data. This study aimed to develop a vehicle front profile FE model, representative of a large U.S. vehicle, and validate the model from pedestrian component test data. Analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data showed that pickup trucks pose the highest risk factor to pedestrians in the U.S. As a result, an FE model was developed based on the scanned geometry of a 2023 Ford F-150. Material properties from the Euro SUV model were applied to the developed FE model as a baseline. Pedestrian headform, upper legform, and lower legform FE simulations were performed on the model. Model data was validated against experimental test corridors of a Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Tahoe from literature. Model parameters such as thickness, stiffness, and damping were tuned for increased correlation to the experimental test corridors. Correlation and Analysis (CORA) scores improved for all model outputs. A larger experiment sample size would improve model validation. Future studies will be performed using Pedestrian Human body models with the FE vehicle to analyze pedestrian kinematics.