Design Aspects of Energy Absorption in Car Pedestrian Impacts

The car-pedestrian impact is formulated as a design task for the engineer designing a car front. Pedestrian load tolerances are defined in an appropriate form for design. A two dimensional mathematical model with assumed deformable car surface is used to determine the movement of the pedestrian during the collision, the locations and velocities of impact. The dynamic load bearing capacity of materials and car body components is determined using an impact pendulum. With the described design procedure an experimental front was defined, built and tested in full scale crash tests. Results are presented. Emphasis is laid on simplicity of design methods as well in analysis as in experimental testing.