Search Results

It is commonly recommended to use infant/child restraints in the rear seat, and that until an infant reaches certain age, weight and height criteria, the infant restraint should be placed rear facing. This paper will describe the injuries suffered by an infant that was restrained in a forward-facing child seat placed in the front passenger seating position during a real world collision. Based on this collision, a full-scale vehicle to barrier impact test was performed. For this test, two 6-month-old CRABI dummies were used in identical child restraints. One of the restraints was placed in the front passenger seat in a forward facing configuration, and the other was placed in the right rear seating position in a rear-facing configuration. This paper provides a detailed discussion of the results of this test, including comparisons of the specific kinematics for both the restraint/child dummy configurations.

This study involves two areas of research. The first is the finalization of the Pedestrian Crash Data Study (PCDS) in order to provide detailed information regarding the vehicle/pedestrian accident environment and how it has changed from the interim PCDS information. The pedestrian kinematics, injury contact sources, and injuries were analyzed relative to vehicle geometry. The second area presented is full-scale attempts at reconstruction of two selected PCDS cases using the Polar II pedestrian dummy to determine if the pre-crash motion of the pedestrian and vehicle could somehow be linked to the injuries and vehicle damage documented in the case.

A technique has been developed to study the effects of the vehicle interior on the performance of child safety seats. Child safety seat sled tests are used to define the kinematics of the seat and child in a crash situation. Computer animation of this motion is superimposed on the motion of the actual vehicle crash tests giving an estimation of the kinematics of the child and child seat in a real crash situation. The significance of the vehicle interior and the interference of the vehicle interior with the child's kinematics is presented within the computer animation. The analysis is conducted using a single child restraint device in multiple seating conditions within a single vehicle.

The development of injury predictive models for pedestrian thoracic impact based on experimental data obtained in a previous study is presented. The data consists of ten cadaveric test subjects including eight side and two frontal impacts. A ten accelerometer array was mounted on the thorax to define thoracic kinematics. Three types of parameters, Q, B, and PSD, are developed to summarize each acceleration signal. A statistical regression is performed to generate empirical models for predicting the injury level (number of rib fractures) from these parameters. Coefficients of determination for these models range from 0.8 to 0.99 with the new PSD parameter showing exciting promise. Success of these parameters in predicting thoracic injury implies a relationship with frequency, particularly in the neighborhood of 60 Hz.

There have been a number of papers written about the dynamic effects of low speed front to rear impacts between motor vehicles during the last several years. This has been an important issue in the field of accident analysis and reconstruction because of the frequency with which the accidents occur and the costs of injuries allegedly associated with them. Sideswipe impacts are another, often minor, type of motor vehicle impact that generate a significant number of injury claims. These impacts are difficult to analyze for a number of reasons. First, there have been very few studies in the literature describing the specific dynamic effects of minor sideswipe impacts on the struck vehicles and their occupants. Those that have been performed have focused on the impact of two passenger cars.