Design of motorcycle rider protection systems using numerical techniques

The goal of this paper is the development of a design methodology, based on the use of finite elements numerical tools and dummies in order to study the damages and injuries that appear during a motorcyclist collision against a motorcyclist protection system (MPS). According to the existing regulation, a Hybrid III dummy FEM model has been used as a starting point and some modifications have been included. For instance a new finite element helmet model has been developed and later added to the dummy model. Moreover, some structural elements affecting the simulation results such as the connecting bolts or the ground have been adequately modeled. Finally there have been analyzed diverse types of current motorcyclists protection systems, for which it has been made a comparative numerical-experiment analysis to validate the numerical results and the methodology used.