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This paper discusses an attempt to relate measured loading at the head neck junction of arestrained six year old ATD during a frontal crash, to the mechanism of upper cervical fracture dislocation in young children. Lap belt, lap shoulder belt anda four point restraint system are considered. The basis for the reconstructions is the fatal injury to lap-belt restrained young children seated in the rear seat of contemporary minivans. The study concludes that simple forces and bending moments measured on such an ATD may not provide a sufficient basis for judging the likelihood of such an injury. Suggestions for a more comprehensive injury analysis are made.

This technical paper presents the results of biomechanical testing conducted on the ES-2 dummy by the Occupant Safety Research Partnership and Transport Canada. The ES-2 is a production dummy, based on the EuroSID-1 dummy, that was modified to further improve testing capabilities as recommended by users of the EuroSID-1 dummy. Biomechanical response data were obtained by completing a series of drop, pendulum, and sled tests that are outlined in the International Organization of Standardization Technical Report 9790 that describes biofidelity requirements for the midsize adult male side impact dummy. A few of the biofidelity tests were conducted on both sides of the dummy to evaluate the symmetry of its responses. Full vehicle crash tests were conducted to verify if the changes in the EuroSID-1, resulting in the ES-2 design, did improve the dummy's testing capability. In addition to the biofidelity testing, the ES-2 dummy repeatability, reproducibility and durability are discussed.

The objectives of this study were to provide insights on how injury risk is influenced by occupant demographics such as sex, age, and size; and to quantify differences within the context of commonly-occurring real-world crashes. The analyses were confined to either single-event collisions or collisions that were judged to be well-defined based on the absence of any significant secondary impacts. These analyses, including both logistic regression and descriptive statistics, were conducted using the Crash Investigation Sampling System for calendar years 2017 to 2021. In the case of occupant sex, the findings agree with those of many recent investigations that have attempted to quantify the circumstances in which females show elevated rates of injury relative to their male counterparts given the same level bodily insult. This study, like others, provides evidence of certain female-specific injuries.

Occupants exposed to far-side crashes are those seated on the side of the vehicle opposite the struck side. This study uses the NASS/CDS 1988–98 to determine distributions of serious injuries among restrained occupants exposed to far-side crashes and the sources of the injuries. Vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests were conducted to study dummy kinematics. The NASS/CDS indicated that the head accounted for 45% of the MAIS 4+ injuries in far-side collisions and the chest/abdomen accounted for 39%. The opposite-side interior was the most frequent contact associated with driver AIS 3+ injuries (26.9%). The safety belt was second, accounting for 20.8%. Vehicle-to-vehicle side impact tests with a 60 degree crash vector indicated that different safety belt designs resulted in different amounts of head excursion for the far side Hybrid III dummy. For all three point belt systems tested, the shoulder belt was ineffective in preventing large amounts of head excursion.

Dummy response and restraint configuration factors associated with a known child injury environment were investigated using a spinal-cord injury accident case, a full-scale reconstruction, and sled simulations. The work is one of several studies undertaken in association with the International Task Force on Child Restraining Systems to support the development of improved neck injury criteria and restraint systems for young children. A two-vehicle crash involving a restrained child occupant was investigated in detail and reconstructed in full-scale at the Transport Canada Motor Vehicle Test Centre using the CRABI 6-Month dummy. Vehicle damage and crush characteristics closely resembled that of the case vehicles. Dummy instrumentation included head and chest accelerometers and upper and lower neck transducers. The case occupant had been facing forward and had sustained a contusion of the spinal cord at T2 that resulted in paraplegia.

Currently, one of the major challenges for automotive engineers is to provide additional protection to motor vehicle occupants involved in side-impact collisions. A considerable amount of research is being conducted into this problem by governments and motor vehicle manufacturers on a worldwide basis. Changes to the current safety standards relating to side impact protection have been proposed in both North America and Europe. The proposed standards involve the use of dummies in collisions between a moving barrier and a stationary test vehicle. A total of 22 side impact tests of production vehicles have been completed to date to assess the appropriateness of the test procedures developed in the U.S. and Europe in the context of the Canadian vehicle mix and associated side impact accident problem. Vehicle performance rankings provided by the two test procedures were found to vary greatly.

The responses of a 5th percentile female ATD in the driver and/or rear passenger positions of 56 crashes are described. The Transport Canada side impact programme consisted of LTV-to-car impacts, car-to-car impacts and IIHS barrier-to-car tests. The majority of the tests involved severe crash conditions for which the vehicles were not designed. The SID-IIs head, chest and abdominal responses were compared to determine the effects of the striking bullet geometry, the angle of impact, the impact point and the self-protective elements of the struck vehicle, including airbag technology and armrest designs. The SID-IIs head responses and deflection measures were sufficiently sensitive to discriminate between the various striking vehicles, crash configurations, airbag systems and armrest characteristics.

Child dummies were seated in size appropriate child restraints and exposed to in-vehicle, static, side mounted airbag deployments as well as full scale side impact crash tests. The child seat sample included rear and forward facing child restraints and booster seats. Anthropomorphic test dummies (ATD) included an 18 month infant and fully instrumented Hybrid III 3 year old and Hybrid III 6 year old child dummies. Preliminary results suggest that properly restrained infants and children occupying age appropriate child seats may receive some protective benefits from side airbags provided the child seat and the child occupant are correctly positioned.

Light duty vehicles in the US are designed to meet and exceed regulatory standards, self-imposed industry agreements and safety rating tests conducted by NHTSA and IIHS. The evolution of side impact regulation in the US from 1973 to 2015 is discussed in the paper along with two key industry agreements in 2003 affecting design of restraint systems and structures for side impact protection. A combination of all the above influences shows that vehicles in the US are being designed to more demanding and comprehensive requirements than in any other region of the world. The crash environment in the US related to side impacts was defined based on data in the nationally representative crash database NASS. Crash environment factors, including the distribution of cars, light trucks and vans (LTV’s), and medium-to-heavy vehicles (MHV’s) in the fleet, and the frequency of their interactions with one another in side impacts, were considered.

Drawing on recent Canadian field collision investigations and crash testing using the SIDIIs dummy, the field experience and crash performance of side-mounted airbag systems are reviewed. All of the inflatable technologies tested demonstrated the ability to greatly reduce head injury potential. Further improvements to the design of inflatable head protection devices are required to better ensure they contain and protect the head of occupants seated in locations forward of the mid seat track. New moving deformable barrier designs, such as the one recently developed by the IIHS, appear to offer significant advantages over designs currently used to regulate side impact protection. Improving the level of protection against chest injury to car occupants in SUV-to-car side impacts represents a significant challenge.

This paper reports on a parametric study of side impact crash tests. Relative changes in injury risk are assessed for both front and rear struck side occupants in tests with variation of mass, stiffness, geometry and speed of the impacting mobile deformable barrier. The study concludes that the ground clearance of the MDB face and impact velocity have a significantly greater effect on injury risk than the other parameters. The paper also includes consideration of tests to further investigate the effects of mass ratio between the struck and striking vehicle. This cooperative project between the Australian Department of Transport and Regional Services and Transport Canada includes analysis of intruding door behaviour and consequent effects on injury risk.

A small overlap frontal crash test has been recently introduced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in its frontal rating scheme. Another small overlap frontal crash test is under development by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Whereas the IIHS test is conducted against a fixed rigid barrier, the NHTSA test is conducted with a moving deformable barrier that overlaps 35% of the vehicle being tested and the angle between the longitudinal axis of the barrier and the longitudinal axis of the test vehicle is 15 degrees. The field relevance of the IIHS test has been the subject of a paper by Prasad et al. (2014). The current study is aimed at examining the field relevance of the NHTSA test.