Pedestrian impact and run over using a multibody simulation tool

Abstract The simulation of impact and run over of a pedestrian by a bus is presented here to demonstrate the fundamentals of the use of integrated multibody based methodologies as accident reconstruction tools. The equations of motion for the pedestrian and bus models are generated in a systematic way and described using a set of natural coordinates. These equations are solved using the augmented Lagrange formulation which accounts for the existence of redundant kinematic constraint equations, arising from the choice of coordinates used in most of the multibody formulations. These constraint equations have a linear-quadratic nature and are therefore simple to evaluate. The pedestrian physical characteristics are scaled parametrically from a biomechanical database with standard anthropometric data In order to prevent the biomechanical model' to achieve physical unacceptable positions, a circumduction cone of control is defined in each articulation. When a relative position between two segments is detected ...