In side-impact collisions, the occupant in the non-impacted far-side position faces a high risk of death and serious injury. However, current research on injury to far-side occupants remains limited. This study utilized 40 real-world side collision cases to extract dynamic boundary condition parameters of the impacted vehicle through kinematic reconstruction. These parameters were input into a simplified finite element (FE) vehicle model equipped with a human body FE model in the far-side position. Simulation calculations were performed to obtain head and chest injury parameters for the far-side occupant and assess their injury risk. Finally, the study focused on analyzing the effect of vehicle motion boundary conditions on far-side occupant’s injury risk. The assessment based on the head injury criterion HIC15 shows a low head injury risk for the far-side occupant. However, using the BrIC metric, which accounts for head rotational motion, reveals a significant risk of severe traumatic brain injury in some cases. Regarding chest injury, analysis based on the effective plastic strain of ribs indicated a low risk of rib fractures. However, results from the chest viscosity criterion (VC) and internal organ strain analysis suggested a high risk of soft tissue injury in the chest. This computational investigation, leveraging biofidelic human models, underscores that the human body’s response to complex, multi-directional impacts is not fully captured by traditional metrics. This study concludes that addressing the protection of the far-side occupant is essential in side-impact safety design, with particular emphasis on the unique injury risks posed by vehicle rotational motion, potentially inspiring biomimetic safety systems that better adapt to these complex loading conditions.
Deng et al. (Mon,) studied this question.