Development of a sport utility front bumper system for pedestrian safety and 5 mph impact peformance

Detwiler, Duane T.; Miller, Ryan A.

A front bumper system for use on a Sport Utility Vehicle was designed by Honda R&D Americas, which meets the conflicting requirements for both pedestrian safety and 5 mph impact performance.

The requirements for both substantial “soft” crush space and limited barrier intrusion presented conflicting design directions. A sport utility front bumper system, which balances these design parameters, was developed using computer modeling. A pedestrian upper legform to bumper test was modeled using MADYMO, while 5 mph barrier test simulations utilized LS-DYNA3D. The virtually developed pedestrian bumper system’s performance was confirmed through physical testing.

This paper will outline the process and methods used for this pedestrian bumper system development. Some details of the new bumper design and its performance will be featured.

Year

Entry

2001

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1998

EEVC Working Group 17 Report: Improved Test Methods to Evaluate Pedestrian Protection Afforded by Passenger Cars. European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee (EEVC); 1998.

Year

Entry

2005

Ivarsson BJ, Henary B, Crandall JR, Longhitano D. Significance of adult pedestrian torso injury. In: 49th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 12-14, 2005; Boston, MA.263-277.

2003

Neal MO, Kim H-S, Wang JT, Fujimura T, Nagai K. Development of LS-DYNA FE models for simulating EEVC pedestrian impact. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 19-22, 2003; Nagoya, Japan.