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The European Commission is proposing legislation aimed at enabling a pedestrian to survive a frontal impact without serious injury or death with a vehicle travelling at 40 km/h. One aspect of this proposed legislation is reducing the pedestrian's leg injuries due to contact with the bumper and frontal surfaces of a vehicle, assessed using a legform. In this study, the finite element model for legform impactor was developed to investigate the effects of various design parameters on pedestrian lower leg impact. The model is first matched with the result of component test, then matched with the result of the test on actual vehicle. Using this model, the optimization design of bumper structure for lower leg impact was performed. The statistical design support system (SDSS) was applied for the optimization, where the acceleration, bend angle and shear displacement of legform impactor were chosen as the objective functions, and the simultaneous optimization for the functions was carried out.

Every year several thousands of unprotected road users are killed in car accidents. The European Commission is working on new regulations to improve passive pedestrian protection on passenger cars significantly. Recently, European Parliament has made the decision to support the commitment on pedestrian safety proposed by the European Automobile Manufactures Association. Therefore, pedestrian protection measures will be required on all passenger cars sold in Europe from 2005. In this study, to improve levels of current performance, some modifications on current production vehicle have been made including the bumper, hood hinge, fender, etc. The lower legform and child headform impact tests were carried out on current production vehicle and new prototype. The solution for lower leg protection was achieved through a combination of design factors.