Engineering Commons^™

Use Of Polyurethane Material Models For Simulating Leg-Form Impact In Different Explicit Finite Element Codes, Joe Hassan, Peter Schuster, G. Frederick

Mechanical Engineering

Compressible plastic foams are used throughout the interior and bumper systems of modern automobiles for safety enhancement and damage prevention. Consequently, modeling of foams has become very important for automobile engineers. To date, most work has focused on predicting foam performance up to approximately 80% compression. However, in certain cases, it is important to predict the foam under maximum compression, or 'bottoming-out.' This paper uses one such case-a thin low-density bumper foam impacted by a pedestrian leg-form at 11.1 m/s-to investigate the 'bottoming-out' phenomenon. Multiple material models in three different explicit Finite Element Method (FEM) packages (RADIOSS, FCRASH, and LS-DYNA) …

Determination Of Bumper Styling And Engineering Parameters To Reduce Pedestrian Leg Injuries, Peter J. Schuster, Bradley Staines

Mechanical Engineering

The European Commission is proposing legislation aimed at reducing the severity of injuries sustained by pedestrians in the event of an impact with the front-end of a motor vehicle. One aspect of this proposed legislation is reducing the pedestrian's leg injuries due to contact with the bumper and frontal surfaces of a vehicle, assessed using a 'pedestrian leg impact device,' or 'leg-form.'

This proposed legislation presents the challenge of designing a bumper system which achieves the required performance in the leg-form impact-without sacrificing the bumper's primary function of vehicle protection during low-speed impacts. The first step in meeting this challenge …