Effect of vehicle speed on injury of child passenger in frontal crashes

Abstract

Speed is major cause of death to vehicle occupants especially children. Studying effect of speed on child injury severity is crucial to establishing safety regulations. This work investigates the effect of vehicle speed on the severity of injury sustained by three-year-old (3YO) children. Restrained 3YO child dummy Finite Element (FE) model was used to conduct crash simulation at impact speed of 40km/h, 46 km/h and 48 km/h in Ford Taurus FE model using LS DYNA code. Vehicle deceleration was found to increase with increase in speed. Head Injury Criteria (HIC36), HIC15, chest acceleration (CA), chest severity index (CSI), chest deflection (CD) and neck moment (NM) were evaluated and compared with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) threshold. It was found that the injury parameters sustained by 3YO child increased with increase in speed. HIC36 was found to be above threshold for 48km/h and 46km/h. Speed of 40 km/h had all the injury values below the threshold. Chest deflection was lower than the threshold for all the three speeds. Chest acceleration and neck moment were also presented and their values also increase with speed, though, NHTSA doesn’t capture their threshold. The study disseminates information on the effect of speeding on child injuries in frontal crashes for road safety agents and vehicle designers and users. Limiting vehicle speed is therefore crucial to child occupant protection.