Occupant injuries and fatalities in motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) have been posing significant challenges to road traffic safety globally. A comprehensive understanding of real-world injury mechanisms contributes to enhanced vehicle safety development. This study constructed a framework to identify the occupant dynamics and the injury mechanisms via multi-level accident reconstruction with application to lumbar spine fracture. A series of mechanical parameters including stress, strain, section force, and the loading path on occupant lumbar spine were analyzed. Compression-bending induced stress concentration proved to be the primary injury mechanism of occupant lumbar spine fracture in frontal MVCs. Injury tolerance with regards to such complex loading conditions cannot be fully replicated by uniform compression tests in the laboratory. The present study demonstrated the advantage of combined field-computational approach in injury mechanism and safety strategy investigation, and the feasibility of advanced human models in identifying injury outcomes and the underlying load distribution among tissues.
Multi-Level Reconstruction of Motor Vehicle Crash Identifies Real-World Injury Mechanism: An Example of Occupant Lumbar Spine Fracture
20th COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals ; 2020 ; Xi’an, China (Conference Cancelled)
CICTP 2020 ; 4167-4179
2020-12-09
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Transportation Research Record | 2022
|British Library Online Contents | 2013
|