Enhancement of Vehicle/Roadside Hardware Crash: Dynamic Response of Child Occupant Involved in Vehicle/Pole Impact

This paper focuses on minimizing child injuries experienced during frontal vehicle-to-pole collisions by improving on the safety and energy absorption of existing traffic pole structures. A finite element computer model, using LS-DYNA software, is used to simulate crash events in order to determine the influence of pole structural and material characteristics on the injury parameters of a hybrid III 3-year-old child dummy occupant. Different pole support systems and laminar traffic poles of different materials are investigated in this paper. It is concluded that the anchored base support and the embedded pole in soil systems provide desirable crashworthy results, thus reducing fatalities and injuries resulting from vehicle impact. It is also recommended to mandate traffic protection devices in all areas with poor energy absorbing characteristics that resemble non-deformable objects