Simulation of Motorcyclist Impacts with Rub-Rail Roadside Barrier Modifications

摘要

In Australia, around 12 motorcyclists per annum are fatally injured following a collision with arnroadside barrier (1). With a goal of reducing such trauma, the Australian and New ZealandrnRoad Safety Barrier Systems and Devices Standard AS/NZS 3845.1:2014 (2) recently introducedrna crash test requirement for devices intended to improve the safety of roadside barriers forrnmotorcyclists. The crash test is based on the European CEN technical specification CEN/TSrn1317-8:2012 (3). While this crash test protocol has been demonstrated to be a robust procedure,rnwith many crash tests performed in Europe, there are some limitations (typical to crash testing)rn(4): only one impact trajectory is tested (head-leading at 30° and 60 km/h); the head-leadingrnorientation does not consider direct chest impacts and associated injuries; and the crash test usesrna Hybrid III Anthropomorphic Test Dummy (ATD), which has proven bio-fidelity, but does havernlimitations (particularly under vertical head–neck axis loading and side impacts to the thorax inrnthe coronal plane).rnRecent motorcyclist–barrier crash studies (1, 5 ,6) have indicated that: the most frequentrncrash type was a collision with a steel W-beam barrier (guardrail) of which half are in the slidingrnposture (i.e., the motorcyclist is separated from the motorcycle) and half remain seated in thernupright posture; impact angles varied between 5° and 33°, with a mean of 15.4°; impact speedsrnvaried between 60 and 200 km/h, with a mean of 101 km/h; and the most frequently occurringrnserious injuries were thoracic injuries, followed by head and lower extremity injuries.rnConsidering the limitations of crash testing, a human body finite element (FE) model wasrnused to assess human kinematics and injury potential for a wide range of sliding impactrnconfigurations, thereby assessing devices for a full range of field-observed collision modes. Thisrnpaper provides a summary of the findings.