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A kinematic analysis of the head-neck unit has been conducted in 37 simulated traffic accidents in order to investigate correlations between neck response and injuries. Belted fresh human cadavers in the age range 18 to 74 years have been used as front and rear-seat passengers. The analysed data included 23 frontal collisions, impact velocity 30 km/h, 50 km/h and 60 km/h, barrier impact and 14 90°-car to car lateral collisions with near-side passengers (6 cases) as well as far-side rear-seat passengers with an in-board upper anchoring point for the shoulder belt (8 cases). The head bending angle depended on the type of the collision. At the frontal collision, the mean head bending maxima amounted 79°, the evaluated mean angular velocity maxima and angular acceleration maxima corresponded to 41 rad/s and 2208 rad/s2, the mean maximum velocity in trajectory of the head was 10 m/s, the mean maximum acceleration along the path amounted 23 g.

Side impacts have been shown to produce a large portion of both serious and fatal injuries within the total automotive crash problem. These injuries are produced as a result of the rapid changes in velocity an automobile occupant's body experiences during a crash. Any improvement to the side impact problem will be brought about by means which will ultimately modify the occupant's rapid body motions to such a degree that they will no longer produce injuries of serious consequence. Accurate knowledge of both the body's motion and resulting injuries under a variety of impact conditions is needed to achieve this goal. Possession of this knowledge will then permit development of accurate anthropomorphic test devices and injury criteria which can be used to create effective injury countermeasures in vehicles.

By an acceleration track operated through a falling weight (9, 11*) with a crash velocity of 50 km/h and a stopping distance of about 40 cm-corresponding to the crease region of many automobiles-the effect of three-point-retractor belts on 30 fresh cadavers and of two-point belts with kneebar on 19 fresh cadavers had been tested. The age of the cadavers ranged from 12-82 years. Qualitatively, almost all injuries known under the term “seat belt syndrome” could be reproduced. The dependence of the degree of injury in regard to the age was quite evident. It can be expected that persons over 40 years of age will suffer the same dangerous injuries as the tested cadavers, caused by the diagonal belts if the above mentioned crash conditions are existent. This will apply to both belt systems tested by us. The shoulder-belt-forces of all of our tests were between 340 kp and 1000 kp, but more serious injuries of the cadavers of older persons could be observed.

The paper presents and discusses results of the FAT research project “Loading Limits and Injury Mechanism of Belted Occupants in Lateral Collisions.” Knowledge of load limits and injury mechanism is a mandatory for the definition and assessment of measures to further increase existing levels of vehicle occupant protection. The effectiveness of vehicle engineering measures is examined by one of the means of experimental simulation utilizing dummies. One of the purposes of this research project was to determine the suitability of dummies as test devices for lateral impact testing. In this connection, correlation of dummy loads and occupant injuries was to be examined in order to establish occupant protection criteria for the marching of test results with dummies with the real world accident scene. The behavior of cadavers and HSRI-, APROD- and Hybrid II dummies is compared in 90° lateral impacts with 50 km/h impact velocity.