Bicycle handlebars as a risk of injury

In Austria, round 8,000 youngsters and younger individuals are injured in biking accidents yearly and subsequently handled in hospital. Round 600 of the accidents are immediately attributable to contact with the handlebars, and round 19 p.c of those require hospitalization. It’s putting that round half of the accidents brought on by the handlebars have an effect on the stomach.

Particularly, they’re accidents (e.g. bruises, tears) to the liver, pancreas or spleen, explains Christoph Arneitz, senior doctor on the Division of Pediatric and Adolescent Surgical procedure in Klagenfurt, who medically analyses such accidents.

Belly accidents sometimes happen when a toddler falls onto the tip of the handlebars of a bicycle mendacity on its facet on the bottom or in rear-end collisions when the handlebars all of a sudden flip after a collision.

Simulations with six handlebar ends

Maximilian Schinagl investigated these accident conditions for his Grasp’s thesis on the Institute of Automobile Security at Graz College of Know-how (TU Graz). Utilizing a digital human physique mannequin of a kid, he simulated the results of a blunt affect to the stomach from varied angles. For his simulations, six handlebar ends from completely different producers and a faulty handlebar finish (and not using a protecting cap) have been used as a base worth.

As Schinagl exhibits on the premise of the simulation-based examine, the design of the handlebar ends has a big affect on whether or not youngsters are injured in bicycle accidents and the way critical these accidents are. Harm standards equivalent to contact pressure, penetration depth, hundreds on the stomach wall and organs have been analyzed. Handlebar ends with widened protecting caps confirmed the most effective protecting impact.,

Nonetheless loads of analysis potential

A follow-up mission is presently underway at TU Graz in cooperation with the Austrian youngsters’s bicycle producer Woom, through which the affect of the handlebar ends on stomach accidents is being analyzed intimately.

“In the midst of our simulations, we’ve seen that handlebar ends with a bigger diameter can cut back the chance of injury by as much as 20 p.c,” explains Nico Erlinger from the Institute of Automobile Security at TU Graz, who’s concerned within the mission. “As there have solely been a number of research on accidents in one of these accident to this point, there may be nonetheless quite a lot of potential to cut back the chance with additional analysis.”

Though Woom already makes use of handlebar ends with widened protecting caps that considerably cut back the chance of damage, this mission goals to extend the security of handlebar ends even additional.

A publication ensuing from the mission was offered final September on the convention of the Worldwide Analysis Council on the Biomechanics of Harm (IRCOBI) in Cambridge, UK. “Biking security is our prime precedence,” says Woom CEO Paul Fattinger: “By working along with research institutions, we are able to optimize the design of bicycle elements on the premise of empirical proof.”