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A comparative study between belted rollover occupants who did and did not receive head injuries from roof contact was conducted using the National Accident Sampling System (NASS) database. The main objective was to determine if headroom reduction increases the risk of head injury. Headroom was determined for 155 belted occupants involved in rollover crashes of vehicles which were then weighted to make them representative of national estimates. Results showed that headroom was reduced more in those crashes where the occupant had head injuries than in cases where there were no head injuries. It was concluded that the risk of head injury increased with reduced headroom. Furthermore, it was observed that when the initial headroom was higher, the incidence of head injury was reduced.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) upgraded the side impact protection requirement in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 214 and added dynamic requirements to reduce the likelihood of thoracic injuries in side crashes. As part of the agency's research in developing the requirements of the standard, NHTSA developed a mathematical model for simulation of side impacts. This paper investigates the overall safety performance, based on Thoracic Trauma Index (TTI) as the criteria for passenger cars in real world side crashes, with the aid of the simulation model. A Thoracic Trauma Index Factor (TTIF) is utilized to compare relative safety performance of passenger cars under various conditions of impact. The concept of relating energy dissipation in various side structure and padding countermeasures is used to develop a family of curves that are representative of a design platform.