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Technical Paper

Small Occupant Dynamics in the Rear Seat: Influence of Impact Angle and Belt Restraint Design

2005-04-11
2005-01-1708
Catastrophic head and spinal injuries have been reported to older children, properly restrained in the back seats of motor vehicles. The interaction of small stature occupants in contemporary, rear restraint systems has not yet been reported in controlled frontal oblique sled test conditions. Such data is fundamental to understanding potential mechanisms of injuries and effective countermeasures. The purpose of this study was three fold: (1) to conduct a series of controlled sled tests to determine the critical angle at which torso roll-out from the shoulder belt occurs in 6 year old Hybrid III (H3-6C) and 5th percentile female Hybrid III (H3-5F) dummies, (2) to compare dummy injury measures to the standard Injury Assessment Reference Values (IARVs) as a function of impact angle, and (3) to assess the influence of belt pretensioners and anchorage geometry as countermeasures to submarining and torso rollout dummy kinematics.
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