Toyota's Thums software to be available in January 2021 for free

Image Supplied

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Free access to Thums and subsequent use by a wider variety of users is expected to enhance vehicle safety.

Designed to aid vehicle safety technology research and development, and developed in cooperation with Toyota Central R&D Labs, Inc, Thums was the world's first virtual human body model software when it launched in 2000. It enabled simulation and analysis of injuries caused by vehicle collisions.

Since then, and up until the latest Version 6 was released last year, it has continually evolved to add a range of models with different genders, ages and physiques that include skeletal structures, brains, internal organs and muscles.

Compared to the physical crash dummies commonly used in vehicle collision tests, Thums is able to analyse collision-related injuries in more detail, because it precisely models the shapes and durability of human bodies. Conducting simulations on computers also enable a repeated analysis of a range of different collision patterns, while it can dramatically reduce development lead times and costs associated with collision testing.

Thums is currently used in vehicle safety research by over 100 vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, universities, research institutions and others, in Japan and overseas. It is being used to research and develop many different safety technologies, such as seatbelts, airbags, and vehicle structures that help reduce injury risks in vehicle collisions with pedestrians.

Vehicle safety assessment organisations are also currently considering the use of Thums for virtual testing in their future assessment plans.

Making Thums freely available is expected not only to enable a greater number of people to use it in their vehicle safety research but to also improve the usability of the software, as users make improvements to the model themselves and share the results with others.

Seigo Kuzumaki, a fellow at Advanced R&D and Engineering Company, offered the following comment about free access to Thums:

Since the very first launch of Thums in 2000, we've been making ongoing improvements and avidly working to better reproduce the human anatomy and expand the variations of models. It has now become indispensable technology to Toyota's efforts in developing safety technologies and vehicles.

Software license sales through JSOL Corporation (Tokyo) and ESI Group (Paris) will come to an end during 2020, with the start of free access to Thums.