• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.9
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• pp.1019-1027
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• 2014

Vehicle-into-pedestrian traffic accidents show a very high mortality rate compared to their frequency of occurrence. Throughout the world, governments and insurance companies tend to establish and implement new safety standards for pedestrian protection. In order to improve the performance of pedestrian protection, the Korean government has evaluated the pedestrian safety of vehicles under the Korea New Car Assessment Program (K-NCAP) since 2007. The pedestrian protection performance has improved gradually, but it remains insufficient. A pedestrian protection system consisting of a hood lift system and a pedestrian airbag can be a solution to pedestrian safety. A pedestrian airbag design procedure based on a newly defined design scenario is introduced to reduce the head injury criterion of pedestrians. The proposed design scenario is discussed from a practical viewpoint and applied to manufacture pedestrian protection systems.