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Some rollover testing methodologies require specification of vehicle kinematic parameters including travel speed, vertical velocity, roll rate, and pitch angle, etc. at the initiation of vehicle to ground contact, which have been referred to as touchdown conditions. The complexity of the vehicle, as well as environmental and driving input characteristics make prediction of realistic touchdown conditions for rollover crashes, and moreover, identification of parameter sensitivities of these characteristics, is difficult and expensive without simulation tools. The goal of this study was to study the sensitivity of driver input on touchdown parameters and the risk of rollover in cases of steering-induced soil-tripped rollovers, which are the most prevalent type of rollover crashes. Knowing the range and variation of touchdown parameters and their sensitivities would help in picking realistic parameters for simulating controlled rollover tests.

While over 30% of US occupant fatalities occur in rollover crashes, no dummy has been developed for such a condition. Currently, an efficient, cost-effective methodology is being implemented to develop a biofidelic rollover dummy. Instead of designing a rollover dummy from scratch, this methodology identifies a baseline dummy and modifies it to improve its response in a rollover crash. Using computational models of the baseline dummy, including both multibody (MB) and finite element (FE) models, the dummy’s structure is continually modified until its response is aligned (using BioRank/CORA metric) with biofidelity targets. A previous study (Part I) identified the THOR dummy as a suitable baseline dummy by comparing the kinematic responses of six existing dummies with PMHS response corridors through laboratory rollover testing.