Investigation of personal mobility device (PMD) accidents I

• Main Author: Goh, Wei Jie
• Other Authors: Yap Fook Fah
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Engineering; Personal mobility device (PMD); vCRASH; Virtual crash
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176816
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With the rise in popularity of Personal Mobility Devices (PMD) worldwide, it encourages an alternate form of transportation for short trips around the neighbourhood in world that is slowly pushing for more Electric Vehicles to be on the road and phasing out of convention vehicles that is fuelled by the internal combustion engine. In fact PMDs are actually out worldwide and used by many years ago from hoverboard to motorised wheelchair. One of the PMDs this report will be focusing on is the Power Assisted Bicycle (PAB). The more notable differences between PMDs and PAB will be the ability to operate when the vehicles are out of battery. After the PAB run out of battery , the user are still able operate the vehicle by just pedalling like a conventional bicycle. At the same time, power translating from pedalling and the battery allows the PAB to go onto a higher speed. While the PMDs will stop and unable to move went it runs out of battery. Increase in commuting using of PABs on the road, naturally the accident rates will slowly creep up and then caught the attention of the local authorities. Since the PABs are new to the community, limited researches are performed to conclude a precise injury log that can potentially cause by accidents where PAB is involved. One approach to tackle these issue is to use an accident reconstruction software called Virtual CRASH also known as vCRASH. vCRASH is an accident reconstruction software that is able to mimic accidents as closely as possible. Data generated from vCRASH can be used to analyse and interpret the damaged that can be inflicted to the rider taking account to the throw distance from the point of collision and head velocity when it touches the ground as the head is always on of the most vulnerable body part of a human. Overall, employing the usage of vCRASH to reconstruct accidents between PAB and a vehicle(car) at the point of collision has facilitated in attainment the FYP’s goal. One important relation can be deduce from the simulations is the Vehicle’s speed(car) at the point of collision has proven to be the important factor affecting the final results with the cargo weight close to negligible in accounting for the Multibody’s Average Head Velocity, Multibody’s Average Head Throw and Multibody’s Average Top Velocity.