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Automotive seating supports and protects its occupants. Potential improvement in occupant comfort and safety can be derived from seat design modifications. This paper examines a seat cushion design that offers more consistent support to an occupant in static and dynamic application. The occupant restraint system may be enhanced by incorporating the seat as an integral member of the restraint system.

This report presents two test methods and results of a study involving unrestrained dummies in dynamic rollover tests. Data are presented showing dummy head kinematics in relation to the interior of the vehicle as the vehicle experiences deceleration prior to the trip.

In this study, we investigate a new method of testing the occupant kinematics in a rollover crash situation. Much of this work is based on previous full scale vehicle studies by Orlowski and Bahling (1,2). Their work concentrated on FMVSS 208 dolly rollover tests of vehicles equipped with production and reinforced vehicle roofs. They found that the occupant's kinematics, as opposed to roof crush, were responsible for potentially injurious neck injuries as a result of diving type accident kinematics of the head and torso. This led us to examine seat system, belt restraint system and belt restraint anchorage designs that could potentially improve the occupants head to roof clearance. A simulated vehicle environment with representative seat and belt restraint systems was chosen as the baseline system. These quasistatic tests applied a rigid roof I seat and belt restraint geometry. Kinematics of a 50th percentile Hybrid Ill dummy were analyzed in the quasistatic test procedure.