2009
Volume 9, Number 4, p.p. 149–154
Development of a method to simulate injury mechanisms in motorcycle crashes
I. Symeonidis,1,* G. Kavadarli,1 C. Brenna,1 Z. Zhao,1 F. Fraga,2 L. van Rooij,2 E. Schuller1 and S. Peldschus1
1 Institute of Legal Medicine, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany,
2 Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, TNO Automotive, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Motorbike accidents are complicated to simulate because the rider’s posture is influenced by precrash manoeuvring. For injury prediction of a motorcycle accident with finite element analysis (FEA), the setup of the initial conditions for the rider should involve two steps of positioning, namely according to the motorcycle type involved in the accident and according to these precrash manoeuvres of the rider. The objective of this research is to create a method for more realistic simulations of motorbike crashes based on the analysis of various motorcycle geometries, rider postures and precrash manoeuvres, from experiments with volunteers. A device (MGD) was built that could reproduce several motorcycle geometries. For the precrash manoeuvres the volunteers were asked to position themselves on stable motorcycles and to move laterally as fast as possible to simulate a swerve. In another experiment a braking manoeuvre was simulated with the use of the MGD on a moving sled. For the simulation of a crash scenario the following method is proposed: for the precrash phase, a multibody simulation with a computer-controlled rider, based on experimental observations of precrash manoeuvres; and then the use of the kinematic results to determine the initial conditions of a detailed FEA of the crash.
Keywords: accident, electromyography, motion capture, simulation