Preliminary effectiveness assessment of an airbag-based device for riders’ leg protection in side impacts

PTWs usually are cheaper than cars, they have lower energy consumption and fewer polluting emissions than larger vehicles. So, over the last decade there has been a significant increase of PTW circulating park. When riders are involved in an accident, legs are the most frequently injured part of the body. The aim of this paper is to assess the performance of a preliminary concept of inflatable leg protector mounted on a motorcycle. Five impact configurations were simulated in a finite element virtual environment, with the car impacting laterally on the motorcycle. Both stationary and moving motorcycle crashes were performed, while the car speed was 50km/h in every configuration. The rider was represented by a Hybrid III dummy model. Since the model was not validated for side impacts, a comparative analysis was performed. A set of safety parameters was used to assess the performance of the device. Their reduction was obtained in specific impact conditions, although mixed with load increases. Despite a widespread parameter reduction was not achieved, the results demonstrated the potential of the proposed device for lower limb protection, and they allowed the identification of the most severe conditions to be used in future development