Rate-dependent multibody impact modelling for pedestrian crash simulation

Abstract

In modeling contact problems with multibody techniques, one is often faced with a loading that is a combination of rate-independent and rate-dependent behavior. The requirement may be to model such contacts to return a reasonable estimate of impact parameters over a range of conditions that might include a finite impact velocity range. This is the case when estimating head impact severity in simulations of pedestrian crashes for which impact speeds are uncertain. Any rate effects on the loading characteristic of the contact must therefore be estimated.