Occupant Responses of Relaxed and Braced 5th Percentile Female and 50th Percentile Male Volunteers during Low-Speed Frontal and Frontal-Oblique Sled Tests

The increased prevalence of crash avoidance technologies like autonomous emergency braking necessitates understanding of occupant responses during low-speed frontal pre-crash braking and low-severity crash events. Active human body models (HBMs) have emerged as valuable tools to evaluate occupant safety during these events, but must be validated with relevant volunteer data to accurately represent the responses of live occupants. The objective of this dissertation was to quantify the occupant responses of relaxed and braced 5th percentile female and 50th percentile male volunteers during low-speed frontal and frontal-oblique sled tests designed to simulate pre-crash braking and low-severity crash events. A study comprised of 160 low-speed sled tests was performed with 20 volunteers. The volunteers' kinematics, kinetics, and muscle responses were compared to determine how altering impact direction (frontal and frontal-oblique), impact severity (1 g and 2.5 g), demographic group (mid-size male and small female), and muscle state (relaxed and braced) affected occupant responses. The volunteers' occupant responses were significantly affected by impact direction, impact severity, demographic group, and muscle state. The frontal-oblique tests resulted in greater leftward excursions compared to the frontal tests. Increasing the pulse severity resulted in greater forward excursions, reaction forces, and muscle activation. The male volunteers exhibited greater forward excursions and reaction forces compared to the female volunteers. However, the two demographic groups exhibited similar muscle activation during the sled tests. Bracing increased the volunteers' initial joint angles, muscle activation, and reaction forces prior to the sled tests. Bracing decreased forward excursions and increased reaction forces during the sled tests. The relaxed volunteers exhibited greater relative changes in occupant responses compared to the braced volunteers. Overall, this study demonstrated that muscle activation significantly affected the volunteers' kinematics, kinetics, and muscle responses for both mid-size males and small females during low-speed events. Observed differences between demographic groups were more prominent when relaxed and more diminished when braced. These results underscore the importance of validating active HBMs with relevant volunteer data in order to be more representative of live occupants for a wider range of demographic groups in varying muscle states. Finally, this dissertation provides a large, comprehensive, and novel biomechanical dataset that can be used to develop and validate active HBMs for use in assessing occupant response during frontal pre-crash braking and low-severity crash events. These models will help improve the understanding of potential injury risk and development of effective vehicle safety systems for use during low-speed events.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biomedical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Chan, Hana

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Kemper, Andrew R.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Gayzik, Francis S.
• Danelson, Kerry Ann
• Albert, Devon Lee
• Hardy, Warren Nelson

• active human body model
• autonomous braking
• biomechanics
• muscle activation
• pre-impact bracing

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:37765

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115658