Human Models for Crash and Impact Simulation

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the application of computational impact biomechanics to the consequences of real world passenger car accidents on human occupants, using computer models in numerical simulations with industrial crash codes. The corresponding developments are illustrated on the subject of safety simulations of human passenger car occupants. With some adaptations, the developed models apply equally well to the simulation of pedestrian accidents and to the design for occupant safety of motorbikes, trucks, railway vehicles, airborne vehicles, seagoing vessels and more. The human models elaborated in the chapter belong to the class of finite element models. They can be adapted, specialized and packaged for other industrial applications in human ergonomics and comfort analysis and design, in situations where humans operate at their work place, as military combatants, or in sports and leisure activities and more. In the medical field, biomechanical human models can serve as a basis for the simulation and design of orthopedic prostheses, for bone fracture planning, physical rehabilitation analysis, the simulation of blood flow, artificial blood vessels, artificial heart valves, bypass operations, and heart muscle activity, and virtual organ surgery.