Since October 2005, the European regulation for pedestrian protection is applicable to new vehicles. Four impactors have been developed: leg, femur, child and adult heads for testing predefined areas on the front face of the vehicle.
This paper presents the technical strategy and the set of solutions which place PSA Peugeot Citroën as one of the best manufacturers for pedestrian protection with in particular Citroën C6, first and unique vehicle achieving 4 stars in EuroNCAP pedestrian protection assessment.
The scenario of head and leg protection is articulated around two requirements:
The level of constraint induced by these requirements penalizes heavily the style and the overhang of the vehicles. Massive development efforts have been invested in both fields of leg and head protection. The physical characteristics of the components and the design constraints have to be optimized under advanced computational analyses with finite elements model.
The protection of the leg requires the installation of two absorbers (upper and lower).
The head protection requires complex tuning of the stiffness of the bonnet and some components inside the engine compartment. For executive cars with long hood, like C6, it also implied the development of an active bonnet, triggered by fusible optic sensors, which is not only a technical challenge but also addresses outstanding issues in the field of quality and reliability.
The paper provides technical descriptions of the methods deployed by PSA Peugeot Citroën, associating numerical simulations and physical tests, for developing innovative solutions in the field of passive and active safety.