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The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 226 (FMVSS 226) ejection mitigation standard proposes to measure the performance of ejection mitigation countermeasures (like side curtain airbags) in side impacts and rollovers. An ejection impactor, consisting of a head form attached to a shaft, is propelled at the airbag system at different locations, and the ability of the system to prevent complete or partial ejection out of the side window portals is documented. The friction between the head form and airbag can affect the performance of the airbag to retain the impactor, particularly when the impactor strikes at the bottom of the airbag near the windowsill level. In this study, friction tests were conducted to measure the friction coefficients between a head form scalp material and airbag fabric, human hair and airbag fabric, and human skin and airbag fabric.

More than 900,000 long-haul sleeper cabs are projected to be on the road by 2030. About half of heavy truck occupant fatalities occur in rollovers. This paper discusses the current status of rollover protection systems for occupants in sleeper cabs and describes the outcomes from example crashes with sleeper cab occupants. A virtual testing methodology for evaluation of current designs under rollover conditions and restraint tests utilizing dummies and humans also are described. The paper includes discussion of finite element models used and their validation. Examples of results associated with various restraint system configurations are presented. The results show that incorporating effective lateral restraint is important in providing protection to sleeper cab occupants under rollover conditions.