Injury Analysis of a Six-Year-Old Child Pedestrian Thorax in Lateral/Oblique Impact

Child pedestrian was vulnerable group in traffic accident, and the type of pedestrian traffic accident was side impact. This paper aims to study the relationship between the injury biomechanical responses of pediatric thoracic tissues and the lateral impact angle. A finite element model of a six-year-old child pedestrian thorax with real anatomical structural muscles was developed, according to medical CT scan images, and verified by reconstructing lateral and oblique impact experiments. Simulation results showed that the force-deformation curves under the lateral and oblique conditions were in good agreement with that of experiments. The results showed that maximum force was inversely proportional to the oblique impact angle, and maximum deformation was proportional to the angle of oblique impact. Maximum first principal strain of the lung and heart increased with the increasing of the oblique impact angle. The validated child thorax model can be used to study the biomechanical impact response and injury mechanism for child pedestrian.