In recent years SWOV, supported by the dutch government, has striven to obtain a series of computer programs, simulating the chain of events occurring in road accidents. Reasons for this were partly the sometimes overwhelming costs of full-scale research, partly the conviction that the increasingly more sophisticated computer technology can provide an aid to more detailed insight into important facets of the accident process. Up to now, two major types of models have been acquired: - a highly sophisticated model, called vedyac, simulating vehicles on the road, vehicles colliding with fixed or movable obstacles or vehicle to vehicle collisions; - the madymo computer programs, simulating the behaviour of crash victims during the accident. Both models, if applied in succession to a pre-defined type of accident, may provide a good insight into the outcome of such an accident in terms of forces, moments, accelerations and deflections as sustained by both vehicle and victim. A major problem, however, restricting the usefulness of the models, is the translation of these output quantities into a far more relevant assessment of injury severity. The development of an injury predicting model is an attempt to deal with this problem. (a)
Abstract