A new flexible pedestrian legform impactor (Flex-PLI) has been developed by Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc. (JAMA) and Japan Automobile Research Institute (JARI).

The new Flex-PLI has good biofidelity as well as several knee ligament elongation measurement capabilities, three femur and four tibia bending moment measurement capabilities. For these reasons Flex-PLI is likely to be adopted for the future pedestrian Global Technical Regulation.

This presentation introduces a finite element model of the Flex-PLI for LS-DYNA and presents a CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) study that investigates Flex-PLI kinematic behaviour caused by impact with a vehicle. The new Flex-PLI LS-DYNA model was carefully created to ensure that every important detail was included. Geometries, masses and material properties of all parts were reproduced from drawings and inspection of the real components. Connectivity and component interaction within the model were determined by thorough experiments. Accurate prediction of injury indices and kinematic behaviour was achieved by correlation to JARI’s static and dynamic calibration tests. A fine mesh was used while reasonable calculation cost assured by imposing an analysis time step of 0.9 micro seconds.

In this report, investigations by computer simulation of Flex-PLI deformation behaviour mechanisms during vehicle impact are presented.