1M. Sc. [Engg.] Student, Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering, M. S. Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, 560 058
2Professor, Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering, M. S. Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, 560 058
3Asst. Professor, Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering, M. S. Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, 560 058
Safety is the most important criteria in automobile designs which concentrates on both pedestrian and occupant safety. The pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users and are at high risk of traffic accidents. The major reason for the fatality of the pedestrian in traffic accident is due to the head injury resulting from the hard impact of the head against the stiffer hood or the ground. This leads to the necessity of new inner hood panel which is less stiffer and pedestrian friendly.
The head impact analysis on the present hood of the car was done to study the response of the adult head form at two different locations. Structural and modal analysis for the same present hood assembly was done to observe the local and global stiffness. In order to reduce the head injury of the pedestrian the local stiffness over the area of head impact has to be reduced thus the new design of hood inner panel was focused on that and the structural and modal analysis was done for the new design. The design with lesser local stiffness and similar global stiffness compared to the existing hood was finalized.
The head impact analysis for the new design of hood inner panel was performed. The HIC values of the adult head form for two different locations are found to be 706 and 948 which meets the safety limitations of the adult head acceleration during impact as proposed by EEVC WG17 and Euro NCAP regulations. Thus the new design of the hood is pedestrian friendly, considerably maintaining the overall global stiffness of the hood.
Pedestrian Safety, Head Injury Criteria, Stiffness, Inner Hood Panel
