The goal of this study is to establish a methodology to understand injury mechanisms of both ligamentous damages and bone fractures in car-pedestrian accidents. A finite element model (FEM) of the human lower limb was developed using PAM-CRASH TM. The commercially available H-Dummy TM lower limb model developed for a seated position was modified to represent the standing posture of pedestrians. Mechanical properties for both bony structures and knee ligaments were determined from an extensive literature survey, and were carefully implemented in the model considering their strain rate dependency in order to simulate the dynamic response of the lower limb accurately. The element elimination option in PAM-CRASH TM was used to simulate both bone fractures and ligamentous ruptures. Bone models were validated against test results obtained from literature in both static and dynamic conditions. The dynamic response of the knee joint was validated against the response corridors from a series of experiments with Post-Mortem Human Subject (PMHS) presented in the literature. In addition, the lower limb model was validated against published experiments with isolated lower limbs subjected to lateral impact simulating car-pedestrian accidents.
Samenvatting