Pregnant driver injury investigations in oblique crashes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Crashworthiness on 16 Mar 2012, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13588265.2012.664008Kinetics and kinematics of an oblique impact are different when compared to frontal collisions. The objective of this research is to simulate various oblique crash scenarios that pregnant drivers may experience by using the computational pregnant occupant model, ‘Expecting’ and investigate potential injuries that pregnant drivers may suffer. Half-sine acceleration pulses representing crash speeds 15kph to 45kph are used in the simulations. Oblique impact simulations are conducted both from the nearside and the farside (offside) of the vehicle. The placental abruption and hence fetus mortality risks during oblique crashes are compared with the full-frontal impact cases