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A sled-to-sled subsystem side impact test methodology has been developed by using two sleds at the WSU Bioengineering Center in order to simulate a car-to-car side impact, particularly in regards to the door velocity profile. Initially this study concentrated on tailoring door pulse to match the inner door velocity profile from FMVSS 214 full-scale dynamic side impact tests. This test device simulates a pulse quite similar to a typical door velocity of a full size car in a dynamic side impact test. Using the newly developed side impact test device three runs with a SID dummy were performed to study the effects of door padding and spacing in a real side impact situation. This paper describes the test methodology to simulate door intrusion velocity profiles in side impact and discusses SID dummy test results for different padding conditions.

A comparative study of the safety performance of asymmetric and standard HPR windshields was conducted. The effect of increased interlayer thickness was also quantified. There were four different types of asymmetric windshields which had inner layer thicknesses of 0.8 to 1.5 mm and interlayer thicknesses of 0.76 and 1.14 mm. The experimental program consisted of both full scale sled tests and headform drop tests. A total of 127 vehicular impacts were carried out using a modified Volkswagen Rabbit. The test subject was a 50th percentile Fart 572 anthropomorphic test device. The asymmetric windshields were found to have a lower lacerative potential than that of the standard windshield. The best TLI value of 5.2 was provided by a 0.8 - 0.76 mm windshield at 60 km/h. That for the standard windshield was 7.7 at the same speed. All HIC values were less than 1,000 at 48 km/h.

Many rollover safety researches have been conducted experimentally and analytically to investigate the underlying causes of vehicle accidents and develop rollover test procedures and test methodologies to help understand the nature of rollover crash events. In addition, electronic and/or mechanical instrumentation are used in dummy and vehicle to measure their responses that allow both vehicle kinematics study and occupant injury assessment. However, method for measurement of dynamic structural deformation needs further exploration, and means to monitor vehicle-to-ground contact load is still lacking. Thus, this paper presents a method for determining the vehicle-to-ground load during laboratory-based rollover tests using results obtained from a camera-matching photogrammetric technology as inputs to a FE SUV model using a nonlinear crash analysis code.