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The research reported in this paper is a follow-on to a five year research program conducted by General Motors in accordance with an administrative Settlement Agreement reached with the US Department of Transportation. In a subsequent Judicial Settlement, GM agreed fund more than $4.1 million in fire related research over the period 2001-2004. The purpose of this paper is to provide a public update report on the projects that have been funded under this latter research program, along with results to date. An analysis of FARS and State accident data has been completed. Results indicate that fire rates have been significantly reduced over the past 20 years. Fire rates for passenger cars and LTVs have approached similar levels. Fire rates by crash mode indicate that rear impact fires have been significantly reduced; however, fires in rollover crashes have seen considerably less reduction. The highest percentages of fires are subsequent to frontal impacts.

Real world crashes in NASS/CDS 1997 to 2000 were examined individually in order to find patterns in single vehicle rollover crashes. Typical maneuver induced rollovers of SUV's were reconstructed using the HVE model. From HVE and roll event reconstructions, the values of longitudinal, lateral, and vertical displacement, and roll, pitch, and yaw angle, for the pre-roll and rollover event were calculated. These values were used as inputs to a MADYMO model for simulated vehicle motion to predict occupant kinematics. Both near-side and far-side rollovers were simulated. The MADYMO model provided estimates of head velocity for the various rollover scenarios for a belted driver. In both near-side and far-side rollovers of the type reconstructed, the lateral component of head velocity was the greatest. Maximum head velocities of 5.3 m/s were predicted. The simulations were for two complete rollovers. The highest head velocity occurred during the first three quarter turns.

The research reported in this paper is a follow-on to a five year research program conducted by General Motors in accordance with an administrative Settlement Agreement reached with the US Department of Transportation. This paper is the third in a series of technical papers intended to disseminate the results of the ongoing research [Digges 2003 and 2004]. This paper summarizes progress in several of the projects. A statistical analysis of FARS and NASS/CDS indicates that frontal collisions are the most common in both fatal and non-fatal crashes with fires. NASS/CDS indicates that most major and minor fires originate under the hood. Fire rates in FARS are higher in rollovers than in planar crashes, and most rollover fires in NASS/CDS originate under the hood.

A significant number of documented ankle injuries incurred in automobile accidents indicate some form of lateral loading is present to either cause or influence injury. A high percentage of these cases occur in the absence of occupant compartment intrusion. To date, no specific ankle injury mechanism has been identified to explain these types of injuries. To investigate this problem, several resources were used including full-scale crash test data, finite element models, and case study field data. Results from car-to-car, offset frontal crash tests indicate a significant lateral acceleration (10-18 g) occurs at the same time as the peak in longitudinal acceleration. The combined loading condition results in a significant lateral force being applied to the foot-ankle region while the leg region is under maximum compression.