A flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) with biofidelic characteristics is aimed to be implemented within global legislation on pedestrianprotection. Therefore, it is being evaluated by a technical evaluation group (Flex- TEG) of GRSP with respect to its biofidelity, robustness, durability, usability and protection level (Zander, 2008). Previous studies at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) and other laboratories already showed good progress concerning the general development, but also the need for further improvement and further research in various areas. An overview is provided of the different levels of development and all kinds of evaluation activities of the Flex-TEG, starting with the Polar II full scale pedestrian dummy as its origin and ending up with the latest legform impactor built level GTR that is expected to be finalized by the end of the year 2009. Using the latest built levels as a basis, gaps are revealed thatshould be closed by future developments, like the usage of an upper body mass (UBM), the validation of the femur loads, injury risk functions for the cruciate knee ligaments and an appropriate certification method. A recent study on an additional upper body mass being applied for the first timeto the Flex-GT is used as means of validation of recently proposed modified impact conditions. Therefore, two test series on a modern vehicle frontusing an impactor with and without upper body mass are compared. A test series with the Flex-GTR will be used to study both the comparability of the impact behavior of the GT and GTR built level as well as the consistencyof test results. Recommendations for implementation within legislation onpedestrian protection are made. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0277.pdf For the covering abstract see ITRD E145407.
Samenvatting