A study on the injury risk of occupant with different head and neck rotating positions

Drivers obtain road information through head and neck rotation. In order to study the impact of head and neck rotation posture on occupant injury in frontal collision, this paper studies the biomechanical response of occupants with five different head and neck rotation posture under 56 km/h frontal collision based on THUMS human model. Firstly, the kinematic response and head center-of-mass acceleration curves of the dead body and THUMS were compared to verify the validity of the vehicle model. Then, THUMS was adjusted to the standard occupant pose and five different head and neck rotation poses of ±20° and ±40°, and frontal collision simulation was conducted for each of the five poses with or without airbags. The results show that with the increase of head and neck rotation Angle, the risk of neck injury increases while the risk of chest injury decreases. 4 ribs are broken under standard posture, and only 2 ribs are broken when the left rotation of head and neck is 40°. The neck Nij increases by 16.5% compared with that under standard posture. At the same Angle of left turn and right turn of head and neck, there is little difference in occupant injury. With or without airbags, the passengers with standard posture are less prone to injury; Under the same head and neck rotation Angle, the overall injury of the passengers with airbag group is less than that of the passengers without airbag.