Pedestrian Head Impact Zones on Late Model Cars and LTV's

摘要

The study is part of an effort by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to explore whether there are reasonable and practicable ways to reduce the number of pedestrian head injuries. It has been previously shown that the region of the vehicle top surface which will most likely be impacted by a pedestrian's head is determined by the standing height of the pedestrian and the frontal geometry of the vehicle. A term called the 'wraparound distance' (WAD) is used to denote this impact region on a vehicle. Also in previous studies, an adult zone and a child zone have been defined. These are the regions most likely to be impacted by the two age groups, and are determined by the WAD of the two respective groups. The study documents the location of the adult and child impact zones on 36 late model vehicles. The vehicles were chosen to be representative of the fleet on the basis of sales figures. The location of the adult zone relative to the rear hood edge/cowl region was documented along with several other measurements of interest.