In occupant safety simulations it is desirable to extend existing rigid body occupant models towards deformable Finite Element Models. Thereby a wider range of occupant/structure interactions can be covered and a better accuracy can be achieved. This paper describes some aspects of the FE (Finite Element) modelling of the EUROSID thorax for use in an explicit Finite Element code. A single rib model is evaluated first. A full thorax is then generated and inserted into a rigid body Dummy model. Experimental results from impactor tests are used to validate the model.
Abstract