Abstract: In order to study the chest response of the elderly driver in vehicle frontal crash, firstly, a finite element model CHARM_70 for elderly female chest is built and its simulation results are compared with that of corpse experiment to verify the effectiveness of the model. Then with a round disk and a transversely installed round bar as two impactor heads and three impact heights and different impact speeds and impact masses chosen, 5 conditions of pendulum impact experiment are conducted on two elderly corpses PMHS1 and PMHS2. Meanwhile using model CHARM_70 with same setting as corpse experiments, similar 5 conditions of pendulum impact simulation are also carried out. Finally, the results of experiment and simulation, i.e. the relationships between impact force and chest compression, the maximum chest compression C_max and the maximum chest viscosity response coefficient VC_max in five conditions are compared and analyzed. The results show that the chest response to round disk impacting middle position is larger than that to round bar impacting the same position, for model CHARM_70, the difference is 3 percentage points in C_max and is 38% in VC_max. And for round bar impact, the impact height has relatively significant effects on chest response, the average chest response to round bar impacting high position is about 20% smaller than middle position impact, while the average chest response to round bar impacting low position is some 10% larger than middle position impact.

Key words: frontal crash, impact position, chest compression, chest response