Toyota Motor Corp. has added three new digital models — representing children ages 10, six, and three — to its virtual crash dummy software that allows computer crash simulations.

Sales of the new models will begin this autumn.

Toyota’s Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) can forecast the extent of injuries sustained throughout the human body. As a result, THUMS is used in the development of passenger protection devices such as air bags.

The 10-year old (138cm tall), six-year old (118cm tall), and three-year old (94cm tall) model additions to THUMS Version 4 represent the average physiques of children at each respective age.

As with the large male (189cm tall), average-build adult male (179cm tall), and small female (153cm tall) models already being sold, the new models will come in two versions — a passenger version and a pedestrian version. That makes for a total of six new additions to the THUMS lineup. This expanded lineup takes into consideration the influence of age and physique, and allows for a more thorough injury analysis, according to Toyota.  

Ever since THUMS Version 1 was launched in the year 2000, Toyota has continued to improve the software. For Version 2, which was released in 2003, faces and bone structure were added to the models. Version 3, launched in 2008, added a brain simulation and in 2010, Version 4 was upgraded with detailed modeling of the brain and the addition of internal organs and their placement and interaction within the body. In 2015, Version 5 added simulated musculature, allowing the models to assume the same bracing positions that a human might just before a crash.  

The newly launched child-spec models were created as a result of collaborative research between Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and the Collaborative Safety Research Center located in the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich.   THUMS is available for purchase through the Tokyo-based JSOL Corporation and ESI Japan. Automakers, parts manufacturers, and universities all use THUMS.

Toyota will use THUMS to analyze injuries sustained by both passengers and pedestrians during collisions with and between vehicles, and to further research and improve safety technologies of all kinds, the company said.