Abstract:
Recent studies have identified roadside safety barriers as a cause of severe injuries and fatalities for motorcyclists. Roadside safety barrier have traditionally been designed with limited consideration for motorcyclist safety since the primary focus was on the safety of occupants of enclosed vehicles. Computer simulations of full-scale crashes between motorcyclists and road barriers would provide valuable support to improve the limited knowledge of the interaction between motorcyclists and barriers during a crash as well as assess any proposed design countermeasure to reduce serious injuries and fatalities. This study aimed to develop a Finite Element (FE) model of a sport-touring motorcycle that may be used to investigate in detail the characteristics of upright impacts between motorcyclists and different types of roadside safety barriers. Verification and validation was performed on the critical components of the developed motorcycle model, such as the steering system and the front/rear suspensions. Validation against a full-scale crash test involving a concrete safety barrier was also performed to assess the overall response of the modeled motorcycle in combination with an ATD model during a crash. The promising results obtained using the developed motorcycle FE model provided an initial level of confidence for using it in future applications aimed at investigating crash scenarios involving roadside safety barriers and motorcycles.
