Reconstruction of a Side Impact Accident with Far-side Occupant Using Hbm – Discussion of Potential Application of Virtual Hbm within a Far-side Occupant Protection Assessment

Advanced Human Body FE models are now being used extensively in the development process of vehicle safety systems. This tool on one hand aids in the optimization of restraint systems and on the other hand also provides a detailed analysis of injury mechanisms when used within accident reconstruction. A good documented (injury patterns & physical loading conditions) real world crash and its reconstruction not only ensure further development of vehicle safety, but also allows further improvement of these Human Body Models in terms of biomechanical validity and injury prediction capability. This is particularly important, as injury prediction should not only be based on physical thresholds or isolated tissue based injury parameters but should also allow a population based probabilistic estimation of injury risk. Therefore the main objective of this study was the reconstruction and detailed analysis of a real world side crash using a numerical HBM. This real world side crash was chosen from the DBCars in-house accident database of Daimler. In the selected case, a medium sized Mercedes car was struck at approximately the front wheel on the passenger side and had a rollover subsequently. The driver sustained mainly abdominal injuries. A THUMS V4 male model was used to represent the driver of the struck car and to reconstruct the injuries. The probabilistic injury criteria for pelvis fracture, recently published by J. Peres et al. and the probabilistic rib fracture criteria published by J. Forman et al. were implemented to the post-processing tool DYNASAUR. Further stress/strain based injury predictors for other body regions were also used within this study. The real world crash and the injury patterns of the driver were compared and discussed with statistical data whether it can be considered as representative for a typical far-side load case. Finally the applicability of Virtual Testing and use of a HBM within an assessment protocol are discussed for this far-side load case.