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Heavy trucks are produced with a great variety of vehicle configurations, operate over a wide range of gross vehicle weight and sometimes function in extreme duty environments. Frontal crashes of heavy trucks can pose a threat to truck occupants when the vehicle strikes another large object such as bridge works, large natural features or another heavy-duty vehicle. Investigations of heavy truck frontal crashes indicate that the factors listed above all affect the outcome for the driver and the resulting damage to the truck Recently, a new chassis was introduced for on-highway heavy truck models that feature frontal airbag occupant protection. This introduction presented an opportunity to incorporate the knowledge gained from crash investigation into the process for developing the crash sensor's parameter settings.

Boundary mannequin is an important concept in digital human modeling and simulation, yet complicated to deal with and utilize. In theory, the number of boundary mannequins could be as much as (n!)2n for a single gender, where n is the number of critical anthropometric dimensions. It has been recommended [1] to break a complicated task into smaller tasks to reduce the scale of problem, and limit n=2 whenever possible. Even then, the number of boundary mannequins is still high for simulations. In this paper, the authors intend to further simplify the issue. An Excel worksheet is created for the purpose. The input can be as few as two points. An ellipse representing the boundary is automatically generated through regression analysis, and the extremes on the major and minor axes of the ellipse are then obtained, and taken as the optimal boundary mannequins.

AN ENGINEERING evaluation of six automobile head-on collision experiments is presented for impact speeds ranging from 21 to 52 mph. An analysis of the relative collision performances of unit-body and frame-type construction is made. Anthropometric dummy subjects facilitate determination of force systems for restrained and unrestrained motorists, their dynamic and kinetic responses to impact, and the causative factors associated with motorist injury production.* The systems of instrumentation which enabled a comprehensive analysis to be made from an event lasting only 0.25 sec are briefly presented.

AN engineering-oriented summary of the more significant technical findings derived from 12 automobile collision experiments conducted at impact speeds between 7 and 55 mph is presented here. Use of both human subjects and anthropometric dummy subjects facilitated procurement of critically needed data on human engineering aspects of collision injury minimization. An evaluation is made of four conditions of motorist restraint in terms of the force system applied to the motorist. Deceleration patterns, frame deformations, automobile impact analyses, and similar engineering data are given for several impact conditions. The instrumentation techniques for the collection of data in automobile collisions are briefly presented.