Numerical reconstruction and injury biomechanism in a car-pedestrian crash accident.

OBJECTIVE

To reconstruct a car-pedestrian crash accident using numerical simulation technology and explore the injury biomechanism as forensic evidence for injury identification.

METHODS

An integration of multi-body dynamic, finite element (FE), and classical method was applied to a car-pedestrian crash accident. The location of the collision and the details of the traffic accident were determined by vehicle trace verification and autopsy. The accident reconstruction was performed by coupling the three-dimensional car behavior from PC-CRASH with a MADYMO dummy model. The collision FE models of head and leg, developed from CT scans of human remains, were loaded with calculated dummy collision parameters. The data of the impact biomechanical responses were extracted in terms of von Mises stress, relative displacement, strain and stress fringes.

RESULTS

The accident reconstruction results were identical with the examined ones and the biomechanism of head and leg injuries, illustrated through the FE methods, were consistent with the classical injury theories.

CONCLUSION

The numerical simulation technology is proved to be effective in identifying traffic accidents and exploring of injury biomechanism.