Overview
At the Euro NCAP Board Meeting held on 7th February 2019 members voted in favour of the advanced Pedestrian Legform Impactor (aPLI) with simplified Upper Body Mass for future Euro NCAP Pedestrian Safety Testing.
The aPLI project began in 2015 when JARI developed an aPLI concept model by adding an upper mass and modifying Flex-PLI specifications by means of sensitivity analysis on biofidelity.
Development
Thorough biofidelity evaluation by CAE found that design modifications had addressed the Flex-PLI limitations. They included:
- Improved mass distribution of the flesh and the long bones (weight removed from the cone section and more accurately distributed on the flesh and skin layers)
- Shape of the impact surface of the long bones
- Geometric layout of the ACL and PCL
- Adding a femoral offset
- Addition of Upper Body Mass element
- Increased femur bending stiffness
The design specifications and associated injury probability functions have been discussed internationally by experts of ISO/TC22/SC36/WG5&WG6. The physical models, which were designed and developed by Cellbond, have been subjected to worldwide round-robin testing, and showed good stability and repeatability. Our engineers optimised the design following feedback received from the tests, increasing durability and usability.
The aPLI Legform is currently available from Cellbond ATD, and a related Finite Element model will become available from ATD-Models GmbH.