Pedestrian airbag folding patterns on airbag deployment and head injuries based on corpuscular particle method

An earlier study by authors implemented Corpuscular Particle Method (CPM) for simulations of Pedestrian Protection Airbags (PPA). Present study utilised the CPM to investigate the effect of gas flow on the airbag's unfolding procedure. A PPA was designed to cover bottom of windshield and A-pillars where pedestrian head is more likely to hit and stiffness is high. This paper aims to investigate the effect of six folding patterns on PPA deployment behaviour and pedestrian head injuries. For each folding pattern, headform impact on nine points was simulated. Head acceleration curves, HIC values, PPA pressure and friction curves were exported. Results show that a PPA can reduce pedestrian head injuries by up to 90%. Across six patterns studied in this research, the folding-rolling as the best pattern generates lowest HIC values and the rolling-folding and rolling-stochastic as the weakest patterns generate high HIC values as they have higher friction.