Development and drawings of the TRL pedestrian legform and upper legform impactors

In European and most other countries unprotected road users (pedestrians and pedal cyclists) account for a significant proportion of road accident casualties. The Transport Research Laboratory pedestrian safety car, produced in 1985, demonstrated that the design of car fronts could be improved to reduce the frequency and severity of pedestrian injuries. Therefore, as part of their target to reduce the number of road accident casualties and their injury severity, the United Kingdom's Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has supported a continuing programme of research on pedestrian protection at the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). A major part of this research has been channelled through the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) through participation in the pedestrian Working Groups: WG10 and WG17. The European Commission is currently considering using the EEVC pedestrian test methods in some form of regulation or requirement for pedestrian protection features in new car designs. The EEVC test procedures comprise three sub-system impact tests to assess a car's performance. Separate impactors are used to represent the pedestrian in each main phase of impact. Each impactor is propelled into the car and the output from the impactor instrumentation is used to establish whether the energy absorbing characteristics of the car are acceptable. TRL was responsible for developing the upper legform to bonnet leading edge impactor and the final version of the legform impactor used to test the bumper area. This report provides some background information about the EEVC test methods and the development of the impactors. The report is supplied with sets of the current engineering drawings of the two impactors produced by TRL. The drawing sets contain all the information required to manufacture the impactors and will also be of help in constructing mathematical models of the impactors for computer modelling. Publishing the drawings in this way is intended to make the impactor designs freely available worldwide. However, some aspects of the impactors are critical to their performance. TRL can supply the manufactured, assembled and certified impactors.