Studies About the Front Bumper Performance During a Pedestrian Leg Impact

Abstract

A continuous evolution of requirements and standards sheds over the development of new vehicles (for example EuroNCAP ratings) in order to create competition between same market models customer related. The pedestrian impact protection has to be permanently improved as the damage of the front end structure of the vehicle to be reduced to minimal. The European Community has had impressive success in achieving the highest pedestrian protection level on the globe. In 2013, 5.712 pedestrians were killed in road accidents in the EU, which is 22% of all fatalities. In the last decade, in the European Union, pedestrian fatalities were reduced by 37%, while the total number of fatalities was reduced by almost 45%. The front end structure, including the bumper, responds for the absorption of the kinetic energy created during the impact with maximum efficiency in order to avoid the large deformation of structural components and good behavior dur-ing a pedestrian impact. This is only one of the constraints that the front end structure has to cope with, additionally we can mention the dimensioning of the front end of the vehicle which can affect the packaging, which is mainly influ-enced by the design, styling and the pedestrian requirements intended to be ac-complished by the vehicle. The present paper focuses on the pedestrian impact, offering an overview over the actual state, the load configuration, the applicable regulation, the chal-lenging requirements of a modern front structure, which the modern bumper has to comply with and the finite element simulation of this kind of test.