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The WorldSID dummy can be equipped with both a pubic and a sacroiliac joint (S-I joint) loadcell. Although a pubic force criterion and the associated injury risk curve are currently available and used in regulation (ECE95, FMVSS214), as of today injury mechanisms, injury criteria, and injury assessment reference values are not available for the sacroiliac joint itself. The aim of this study was to investigate the sacroiliac joint injury mechanism. Three configurations were identified from full-scale car crashes conducted with the WorldSID 50th percentile male where the force passing through the pubis in all three tests was approximately 1500 N while the sacroiliac Fy / Mx peak values were 4500 N / 50 Nm, 2400 N / 130 Nm, and 5300 N / 150 Nm, respectively. These tests were reproduced using a 150 kg guided probe impacting Post Mortem Human Subjects (PMHS) at 8 m/s, 5.4 m/s and 7.5 m/s.

Many efforts have been made to understand the mechanism of whiplash injury. Recently, the cervical facet joint capsules have been focused on as a potential site of injury. An experimental approach has been taken to analyze the vertebral motion and to estimate joint capsule stretch that was thought to be a potential cause of pain. The purpose of this study is to analyze the kinematics of the cervical facet joint using a human FE model in order to better understand the injury mechanism. The Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) was used to visually analyze the local and global kinematics of the spine. Soft tissues in the neck were newly modeled and introduced into THUMS for estimating the loading level in rear impacts. The model was first validated against human test data in the literature by comparing vertebrae motion as well as head and neck responses. Joint capsule strain was estimated from a maximum principal strain output from the elements representing the capsule tissues.

This paper analyzed the mechanisms of injury in high speed, right-lateral impacts of stock car auto racing, and interaction of the occupant and the seat system for the purpose of reducing the risk of injury, primarily rib fractures. Many safety improvements have been made to stock car racing recently, including the Head and Neck Support devices (HANS®), the 6-point restraint harnesses, and the implementation of the SAFER Barrier. These improvements have contributed greatly to mitigating injury during the race crash event. However, there is still potential to improve the seat structure and the understanding of the interaction between the driver and the seat in the continuation of making racing safety improvements. This is particularly true in the case of right-lateral impacts where the primary interaction is between the seat supports and the driver and where the chest is the primary region of injury.

Posterior translation of the tibia with respect to the femur can stretch the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). Fifteen millimeters of relative displacement between the femur and tibia is known as the Injury Assessment Reference Value (IARV) for the PCL injury. Since the anterior protuberance of the tibial plateau can be the first site of contact when the knee is flexed, the knee bolster is generally designed with an inclined surface so as not to directly load the projection in frontal crashes. It should be noted, however, that the initial flexion angle of the occupant knee can vary among individuals and the knee flexion angle can change due to the occupant motion. The behavior of the tibial protuberance related to the knee flexion angle has not been described yet. The instantaneous angle of the knee joint at the timing of restraining the knee should be known to manage the geometry and functions of knee restraint devices.

Traffic accidents in the United States were analyzed using FARS and NASS data. When classified according to vehicle body type and collision type, fatalities were most common in the case of (1) passenger car to passenger car frontal impacts, (2) passenger car to passenger car side impacts, (3) passenger car to LTV side impacts, (4) passenger car to truck frontal impacts, and (5) passenger car to LTV frontal impacts. Among these collisions, it was clearly confirmed that the occupants of a passenger car have a strong tendency to suffer injury when “the passenger car has a frontal impact with a heavier passenger car,” “the passenger car has a frontal impact with an LTV/SUV, truck,” and “the passenger car is side impacted by an LTV/SUV,” or the like. These examples should be recognized as clear cases of incompatibility. This paper will describe an approach which aim at improving compatibility. However, around 60% of occupants who suffer fatal injuries are not wearing a seat belt.

Approximately 20% of traffic fatalities in United States 2012 were caused by rollover accidents. Mostly injured parts were head, chest, backbone and arms. In order to clarify the injury mechanism of rollover accidents, kinematics of six kinds of Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATD) and Post Mortem Human Subjects (PMHS) in the rolling compartment, whose body size is 50th percentile male (AM50), were researched by Zhang et al.(2014) using rollover buck testing system. It was clarified from the research that flexibility of the backbone and thoracic vertebra affected to occupant’s kinematics. On the other hand, the kinematics research of body size except AM50 will be needed in order to decrease traffic fatalities. There were few reports about the researches of occupant kinematics using FE models of body sizes except AM50.

It is known that the collisions caused by lane departure events account for range of percentages among the countries studied. To help prevent such collisions, the Lane Departure Warning (LDW) system has started to be introduced in production vehicles, but there is little research on its benefits and limitations so far. In this paper we performed an in-depth analysis of the collisions and driver-related essential variables for the lane-departure collision scenarios and demonstrated the benefit estimation process. The benefit of the LDW system is estimated by comparing lane departure events when the vehicle has no LDW, and how they change with the addition of LDW. The event without LDW was modeled in 5 phases: (1) before departure, (2) starting of the departure, (3) departed the lane, (4) at the impact with an object, and, (5) after the impact. “An extensive analysis was conducted of traffic crash data compiled by the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA).

Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) is a system designed to help drivers when skidding or unstable vehicle behavior is about to occur. We have studied the characteristics of VSC in reducing accidents by analyzing accident data statistics in Japan. The results indicate that VSC is effective in reducing single car accidents and head-on collisions with other automobiles. In these accidents, the analysis showed that VSC may be more helpful in reducing a larger number of accidents in the higher speed range where vehicle dynamics plays a greater part. It also showed that VSC may contribute to reducing accidents that result from unstable vehicle behavior. VSC demonstrated more effectiveness in reducing accidents involving lateral & rear impacts than those of frontal impacts, and in reducing accidents on wet & snowy/icy roads than those on dry roads.

Due to the relative high speed and short distance between the door and occupant, side impact presents a challenging task when analyzing the input force from the door to the occupant. The new FMVSS214 Final Rule in 2007 and the new NCAP in 2008 mandated the use of a SID-IIs in the oblique pole impact test and in the rear seat during an MDB side impact test. Therefore, a high-precision measurement and calculation of the three-dimensional dummy kinematics, as well as the interaction of force inside the dummy (internal force) and force exerted from outside the dummy (external force) will help provide efficient evaluation of design requirements for the door trim and supplemental restraint systems that meet legally mandated requirements.

Collisions between opened doors and approaching vehicles such as bicycles are common occurrences in urban areas around the world. For example, in Chicago, 20% of all bicycle accidents involve collisions with doors, which occur over 300 times a year. In addition, there are concerns about a further rise in accidents due to the recent increase in home delivery services and bicycle commuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that are designed to help prevent this type of accident have already been introduced. These systems detect approaching vehicles with sensors and alert the person opening the door via LED lights or a buzzer when the door is opened. The occupant must understand the meaning of the alert and stop opening the door quickly to prevent an accident. However, if the occupant is an elderly person or a child, it is difficult to stop opening the door quickly.

According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 743 pedal cyclists were killed and 48,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2013. As a novel active safety equipment to mitigate bicyclist crashes, bicyclist Pre-Collision Systems (PCSs) are being developed by many vehicle manufacturers. Therefore, developing equipment for evaluating bicyclist PCS is essential. This paper describes the development of a bicycle carrier for carrying the surrogate bicyclist in bicyclist PCS testing. An analysis on the United States national crash databases and videos from TASI 110 car naturalistic driving database was conducted to determine a set of most common crash scenarios, the motion speed and profile of bicycles. The bicycle carrier was designed to carry or pull the surrogate bicyclist for bicycle PCS evaluation. The carrier is a platform with a 4 wheel differential driving system.

The goal of this study was to develop injury probability functions for the leg bending moment and MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament) elongation of the Flexible Pedestrian Legform Impactor (Flex-PLI) based on human response data available from the literature. Data for the leg bending moment at fracture in dynamic 3-point bending were geometrically scaled to an average male using the standard lengths obtained from the anthropometric study, based on which the dimensions of the Flex-PLI were determined. Both male and female data were included since there was no statistically significant difference in bone material property. Since the data included both right censored and uncensored data, the Weibull Survival Model was used to develop a human leg fracture probability function.

In fatal accidents due to heavy duty trucks, the fatalities of occupants in passenger cars in which rear-end collision occur account for the largest percent. Collisions to the vehicles in traffic jams and collision to other accidents scenes on express ways can result in serious repercussions. Therefore the system which reduces the damage of collisions has long been demanded and here the world-first Pre-crash Safety (PCS) System for heavy duty trucks was developed. This system gives warning to the driver in case there is a possibility of collision with preceding vehicles, and activates the brakes to mitigate damage in case there is a higher possibility of collision. In order to get the maximum effect on the express ways where the trucks are in high speed, it is necessary to give warning and activate the brakes with relatively early timing.

This paper describes that a method has been developed to estimate the range of the scatter of Head Injury Criterion (HIC) values in pedestrian impact tests, which could help to reduce the range of the scatter of HIC values by applying the stochastic method for Finite Element (FE) analysis. A major advantage of this method is that it enables the range of scatter of HIC values to be estimated and to explain the mechanics of the behavior. The test procedure of pedestrian impact allows some tolerances for the resultant conditions of impact such that the distance of actual impact location from the selected point is within 10 mm and the impact velocity is within ±0.7 km/h [1]. A HIC value calculated by impact simulation under a deterministic impact condition with the nominal input data does not necessarily represent the variation of measured data in impactor tests.

This paper describes the development of dummy FE models to be used for side impact simulations. The precise geometries of the ES-2re dummy and the SID-IIs dummy were measured at a pitch of 1.0 mm using X-ray CT scan. The material properties and the mechanical responses of the components were measured in static and dynamic tests and were used for the model validation. The models were further validated to US-NCAP side impact requirements. Good correlation was seen for both response time history, and to peak deformation values. It is shown that modeling the precise dummy internal structure in addition to the external geometry and applying accurate material properties enabled simulation of deformation kinematics and load transfer inside the dummies. As a result, it was possible to accurately simulate the injury value time histories in an actual test, and understand the mechanisms causing changes to the loading.

1 Structural parts, such as the center pillar, are a multi-layer structure. They are a combination of high-strength panels and high-toughness panels, to control the deformation mode during a crash. If we can make this multi-layered structure as one panel, consisting of different hardness within it, we will be able to make a lightweight part. In this study, we have developed a method to fabricate a ‘lightweight center pillar’ with the following processes. First, the whole panel is hardened by quenching within the hot stamp process. Next, certain areas of the panel are softened by partial tempering. We have found that the temperature zone for softening is between A1 and A3, and it is easy to perform a rapid and accurate tempering by utilizing induction heating around the Curie temperature between A1 and A3 transformation temperature.

Test methods to evaluate vehicle compatibility are being studied worldwide. Compatibility performance is central in securing mutual protection in collisions between large and small vehicles. To consider compatibility performance, good structural interaction and stiffness matching are important. A test method using a novel moving deformable barrier (MDB) was developed to evaluate compatibility performance that includes consideration of both structural interaction and stiffness matching. This new barrier has the following features to represent an offset vehicle-to-vehicle collision with a compact car. The barrier width is divided at the lower rail position of the compact car, and the layer that simulates the characteristics of vehicle sections toward the interior is harder than the outward layer. This varying stiffness of the MDB helps simulate the horizontal interaction performance that occurs in real-world crashes.

An event data recorder (EDR) records the vehicle status at the timing of an accident. Toyota Motor Corporation began the sequential introduction of EDRs onto its vehicles from August 2000. Currently, about 70% of all Toyota’s vehicles in North America are equipped with an EDR, which is more than the average rate of EDR installation in vehicles in North America (around 50%). The U.S. has introduced regulations for EDRs. Toyota regards these as minimum requirements and also records additional data for accident analysis, including the following: (1) pre-crash data, (2) side crash data, (3) rollover data, (4) pedestrian protection pop-up hood (PUH) data, and (5) vehicle control history (VCH) data from a non-crash triggered recording system. The regulations stipulate that EDR data retrieval must be possible using a commercially available tool. The developed system uses the Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) tool manufactured by Bosch.

This study characterizes the response of the human cadaver abdomen to high-speed seatbelt loading using pyrotechnic pretensioners. A test apparatus was developed to deliver symmetric loading to the abdomen using a seatbelt equipped with two low-mass load cells. Eight subjects were tested under worst-case scenario, out-of-position (OOP) conditions. A seatbelt was placed at the level of mid-umbilicus and drawn back along the sides of the specimens, which were seated upright using a fixed-back configuration. Penetration was measured by a laser, which tracked the anterior aspect of the abdomen, and by high-speed video. Additionally, aortic pressure was monitored. Three different pretensioner designs were used, referred to as system A, system B and system C. The B and C systems employed single pretensioners. The A system consisted of two B system pretensioners. The vascular systems of the subjects were perfused.

Lower extremities are the most frequently injured body regions in vehicle-to-pedestrian collisions and such injuries usually lead to long-term loss of health or permanent disability. However, influence of pre-impact posture on the resultant impact response has not been understood well. This study aims to investigate the effects of preimpact pedestrian posture on the loading and the kinematics of the lower extremity when struck laterally by vehicle. THUMS pedestrian model was modified to consider both standing and mid-stance walking postures. Impact simulations were conducted under three severities, including 25, 33 and 40 kph impact for both postures. Global kinematics of pedestrian was studied. Rotation of the knee joint about the three axes was calculated and pelvic translational and rotational motions were analyzed.