Predicting the Influence of Windscreen Design on Pedestrian Head Injuries

Head/windscreen impacts cause severe injuries to pedestrians, but little is known about the effect of windscreen geometry on pedestrian head injury. This study used MADYMO multi‐ body modelling to investigate the influence of windscreen angle, stiffness characteristics and head/windscreen friction on pedestrian head injury risk as evaluated by the head acceleration. A model of an adult pedestrian struck by a sedan at 40km/h was generated and validated against staged tests. A simulation matrix was then constructed to vary windscreen angle (20°‐55°), contact friction (0.1‐0.6) and contact stiffness. The results generated using a real‐world contact stiffness characteristic show that an increasing windscreen angle decreases the maximum linear and angular accelerations of the head by 7% and 18% respectively. However, these trends reverse when a linear stiffness is applied, and it appears that the mass of the body plays a more significant role for steep windscreens in this case. Increasing head/windscreen contact friction increases the magnitude of head accelerations, but does not affect the trend that they reduce with increasing windscreen angle. However, scaling the real‐world stiffness does affect the head injury risk trends. It is, therefore, cautiously suggested that a steeper windscreen angle is safer for pedestrian head injuries in pedestrian‐vehicle impacts.