Welcome to Journal of Automotive Safety and Energy,

Journal of Automotive Safety and Energy ›› 2025, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (1): 66-76.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8484.2025.01.007

• Automotive Safety • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of head kinematic characteristics on diffuse brain injury in side pole impact

YI Wentao1,2(), TANG Ying1, LEI Feibing1,*(), ZENG Dong1, CAI Yani1, LUO Binyin1   

  1. 1. BYD Automotive Industry Company Limited, Automotive Engineering Research Institute, Shenzhen 518000, China
    2. University of Science and Technology of China, School of Engineering Science, Hefei 230027, China
  • Received:2024-07-19 Revised:2024-09-06 Online:2025-02-28 Published:2025-03-04

Abstract:

A six-degree-of-freedom head model was constructed with prescribed boundary conditions to investigate the impact of head kinematic characteristics on diffuse brain injuries in pole side impacts to refine related brain injury assessment criteria. This study examined the kinematic and biomechanical responses of occupants in 60 pole side impact tests and evaluated the predictive efficacy of existing brain injury metrics for diffuse injuries. The results show that 27% and 35% of the test groups fail to meet the high-performance thresholds for the DAMAGE (Diffuse Axonal Multi-Axis General Evaluation) and for the BrIC (Brain Injury Criteria), respectively. The UBrIC (Universal Brain Injury Criteria) metric shows the coefficient of determination R2 of 0.85 for the 95th percent maximum principal strain, significantly higher than other metrics. The coupling effect of Multi-axis rotational loads leads to concentrated brain tissue strain, posing a high risk for diffuse brain injuries in the pole side impact. The UBrIC is more accurate than that of other metrics in assessing this risk.

Key words: automobile safety, pole side impact, diffuse brain injury, injury metrics, numerical human body model

CLC Number: