Abstract: Energy absorption performance of vehicle front-end material was studied when pedestrian legform
impacts the vehicle. On foams of three different densities and one kind of plastic, static crushing performance
experiment was carried out. On this basis, the density of 30 g/dm3 foam and the plastic were chosen which have
better energy absorption. In a certain kind of sport utility vehicle (SUV) car, energy absorption performance of
the pedestrian protection test samples was measured. The results show that at the static crushing experiments,
overall performance of this kind of plastic is better than that of the foam. The plastic peak load, average load,
total energy absorption are increased more than 4 times the foam, and the energy absorption per mass is also
higher than the foam. Therefore, under the condition of the same energy absorption space, using plastic as the
vehicle front-end energy absorption material can reduce the pedestrian leg tibia acceleration and knee bend
angle, in favor of the pedestrian lower legform impact safety performance.

Key words: automotive safety, pedestrian protection, lower legform impact, foam, plastic, static crushing tests