Evaluate > Pedestrian Protection

Provides the ability to evaluate pedestrian impact with a car hood.

By knowing where the head of a pedestrian impacts the hood of a car during a collision, the design can be modified to reduce collisions with stiff under-structures, improving the ability of pedestrians to survive collisions with vehicles. This is now required by automotive safety guidelines in several countries.

Input to this tool consists of:

Pedestrian height
Width of the impact zone (on each side of the center line)
Ground height
Car hood surfaces

(All distances and heights are in current units.)

The output is a degree 1 curve (polyline) that lies on the hood and indicates where the top of the head of a pedestrian of the given height would impact the selected surfaces if the pedestrian was hit by the car and fell across the hood. The number of spans corresponds to the value of Impact Curve Samples in the control window.

This impact curve produced by the Pedestrian Protection tool has construction history and updates when the input values (such as pedestrian height) or target surfaces are modified.

The input values can be modified through the control window or using the manipulator, and the curve is re-calculated.

Note

We assume that the Z axis is the vertical axis and that the centerline of the car is along the X axis (see illustration above).

Pedestrian Protection Control

Ground Height: Ground plane location (height along the Z axis in current units). The default is Z = 0.
Impact Zone (+/-): Distance from the centerline (along the Y axis) that defines the impact zone. This will be the extent covered by the output curve. The default is +/- 600 mm.
Pedestrian Height: Height of the pedestrian in current units. The default is 1250 mm.

Control Options

Impact Curve Samples: Number of points calculated for the output curve. This also corresponds to the number of spans since the curve has degree 1.
Auto Recalc: When this is checked on, the impact curve updates as you change the values in the Pedestrian Protection control window.
Create History: When this is checked on, construction history is created for the impact curve. After leaving the tool, you can modify the surfaces and the impact curve will update.

Buttons

Evaluate: Click this button to re-calculate the impact curve if Auto Recalc is turned off.
Undo All: Removes the impact curve and de-select the surfaces. The values in the control window are not reset.