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As part of an overall effort to support the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) national program to increase seat belt usage, General Motors instituted an employe seat belt use incentive program at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. This program was responsible for raising seat belt use at the Tech Center from 36% to 70% during its 5 1/2 month duration. The program was patterned, in part, after research work done by professor E. Scott Geller of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University under a grant from the General Motors Research Laboratories and a program conducted by Berg Electronics (a DuPont subsidiary). The intent of the program was to provide sufficient positive incentive to employes to buckle up for an extended period of time, thereby establishing a seat belt use habit that will continue after the incentives are no longer offered.

This is an overview of air bag injuries, a review of the literature and descriptions of air bag related injuries to the various body areas. Some unusual injuries are also included. The cases presented are from the author's files and one from the Special Studies Division of NHTSA.

The extensive use of rotative machines in the diverse branches of the modern world has made the rising undesirable mechanical and acoustic vibration levels to be a problem of special importance for the machines normal operation as for the communities that are each time more affected by the problem. It makes the study of vibration and acoustic phenomena also to be even more important and the applications of its concepts more sophisticated. Several are the concepts used for decreasing vibration levels, like common dampers, hydraulic dampers, active dampers, natural frequencies changes and others. The choice of use of one or another depends greatly on the engineering possibilities (weight, energy, physical space, other components functional interference, vibration levels, etc.) as well as the cost of implementation of each one.

As a typical parameter of the road-vehicle interface, the road friction potential acts an important factor that governs the vehicle motion states under certain maneuvering input, which makes the prior knowledge of maximum road friction capacity crucial to the vehicle stability control systems. Since the direct measure of the road friction potential is expensive for vehicle active safety system, the evaluation of this variable by cost effective method is becoming a hot issue all these years. A ‘wheel slip based’ maximum road friction coefficient estimation method based on a modified Dugoff tire model for distributed drive electric vehicles is proposed in this paper. It aims to evaluate the road friction potential with vehicle and wheel dynamics analyzing by using standard sensors equipped on production vehicle, and fully take the advantage of distributed EV that the wheel drive torque and rolling speed can be obtained accurately.

This recommended practice prescribes clear and consistent labeling methodology for communicating important xEV high voltage safety information. Examples of such information include identifying key high voltage system component locations and high voltage disabling points. These recommendations are based on current industry best practices identified by the responder community. Although this recommended practice is written for xEVs with high voltage systems, these recommendations can be applied to any vehicle type.

SPARE TIRE elimination is a problem that has defied tire engineers for years. Because the space it occupies is wanted for other purposes, increased efforts are being applied to the search for a solution. This paper describes one approach — the dual compartment tire. This is made up of two tires, one inside the other, both of which are inflated at all tiines. If the outer tire is punctured, the inner tire supports the car until it reaches a service station. According to the author, tests indicate that this solution holds promise of eliminating the spare — if the cost can be lowered.*

Linked front and rear braking systems are difficult to implement properly on motorcycles due to the large changes in wheel loading under braking. At the braking limit, there is little to no load on the rear wheel and any brake torque could lock it, making the vehicle laterally unstable. Therefore, most motorcycles have independent controls for the front and rear brakes, requiring the rider to balance the brake force distribution. Electric motorcycles have the ability to utilize the drive motor to apply braking torque at the rear wheel. In this paper a control technique has been developed to link rear wheel braking torque to the front brake lever without risking rear tire lock. Thereby, it is also possible to recapture the energy from rear wheel braking. The control strategy has been tested on a transient pitch model, with rotating wheels and tire model data.

Zero-offset in transducer output during airbag noise testing is often observed, but mostly ignored due to the lack of understanding of its causes and implications. In the field of high-g acceleration measurement, this phenomenon is well documented, and is referred to as zeroshift. Zero-offset occurs when a component in the measurement chain is exposed to some unexpected inputs which the component has not been designed to handle. These unexpected inputs can be mechanical, electrical, or optical. How the transducer reacts to such inputs and the amount of zero-offset produced depends on the sensing mechanism, material used, and the design of the component itself. This paper explores the causes of zero-offset from a general perspective, covering the entire measurement chain. Although much of the information and discussions are based on data obtained from acceleration measurement systems, the findings are applicable to other transducer types, such as pressure and acoustic measurements.

Design load values are a prime consideration in space suit design. Pressurized garment assemblies can be accurately modeled as a cylindrical shell under pressure to determine the resulting pressure loads. But, the resulting longitudinal loads are not a complete picture of the load environment. The man induced loads generally act longitudinally and are very often the larger loads the space suit restraint system must withstand. This paper presents the data collected to fill out the human strength data base in the glove area along with a short description of how this data was collected. Also, a description of how this data was used in the design and flight certification of the current Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit space suit is included along with a discussion of techniques to extend this model to include future space suit design.

Demands of the earthmoving industry for indepth tire knowledge and performance capabilities has placed increased responsibility on the tire manufacturer for establishing operating limits. The challenge of meeting these demands has resulted in an increasing amount of controlled tire testing conducted under simulated field conditions. One of the areas of required information has been for the establishment of Dozer and Loader tire capabilities when operating in Load and Carry service. Since tire heat becomes a major potential problem in Load and Carry service, a method was required to determine the performance capabilities of Dozer and Loader tires so that optimum tire life could be achieved. This paper covers the need for tire limits; basic Dozer and Loader tire design requirements; the method established for determining tire capabilities in Load and Carry service, and finally the factors differentiating this rating system from the TMPH system which is used for transport type vehicles.

AS22759 specification covers fluoropolymer-insulated single conductor electrical wires made with tin-coated, silver-coated, or nickel-coated conductors of copper or copper alloy as specified in the applicable detail specification. The fluoropolymer insulation may be polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVF2), ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer (ETFE), or other Fluoropolymer resin. The fluoropolymer may be used alone or in combination with other insulation materials. These abbreviations shall be used herein. When a wire is referenced herein, it means an insulated conductor (see 7.7).

AS22759 specification covers fluoropolymer-insulated single conductor electrical wires made with tin-coated, silver-coated, or nickel-coated conductors of copper or copper alloy as specified in the applicable detail specification. The fluoropolymer insulation may be polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVF2), ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer (ETFE), or other Fluoropolymer resin. The fluoropolymer may be used alone or in combination with other insulation materials. These abbreviations shall be used herein. When a wire is referenced herein, it means an insulated conductor (see 7.7).

A review of passenger tire construction and the engineering properties required of belt ply materials is presented. Comments are made on the areas of wire cord construction that must be investigated in order for the cost of wire cord to be reduced. Included are elastic modulus, dimensional stability, adhesion to rubber, environmental sensitivity, column strength, tensile strength, bending modulus, and endurance limit. The joint responsibilities of the equipment manufacturers, wire cord manufacturers, and tire companies are discussed.

A review of tire testing in the winter environment is presented from the viewpoint of an independent testing laboratory. The independent tester, by necessity, must satisfy the particular requirements of individual customers. A description of the drive traction truck which was designed to meet these individual client requirements is presented. Also, a comparison of results obtained by the various techniques of analysis is included.

The performance of winter tires is characterized by snow traction and ice skid tests. Winter tire testing is reviewed in regards to the hardware used, design of a test program, site selection, and data analysis. The description of the hardware includes a review of a new traction measurement system. The system incorporates a traction truck with an instrumented axle at a driven wheel position interfaced with a mini-computer which controls the test, stores the measurements, and performs the data analysis.

Winter testing of cars and tires for consumer comparisons is not an easy task to begin with; this is further complicated by the fact that reliable methods for evaluating performance and access to good testing conditions are unavailable to most magazines. The testing group at Tekniikan Maailma Magazine, Finland, has been fortunate to have both the right conditions as well as reasonable resources to develop methods of testing to the extent that they provide sufficiently reliable data to assess vehicle and tire performance in winter conditions. Before any final evaluations are published in the magazine, the weighing of different factors, i.e. the amount of importance placed on different performance characteristics, is carefully considered. In order to achieve a meaningful ranking of these products in relation to different characteristics, constant reference runs, statistical research methods, and highly skillful test drivers are employed.

The wide base light truck tire is a new low profile, wide rim tire concept, which significantly improves vehicle performance. The wide base tire also simplifies and standardizes tire and rim usage, making obsolete the variety of tire sizes, types, and rim styles previously available.

This SAE Recommended Practice establishes uniform engineering nomenclature for wide base disc wheels and demountable rims. This nomenclature and accompanying figures are intended to define fundamental wide base disc wheel and demountable rim terms. The dimensions given are those necessary to maintain serviceability and interchangeability of the wide base disc wheels and demountable rims with standard hardware. Valve clearances have not been included in this document.

This SAE Recomended Practice establishes uniform engineering nomenclature for wide base disc wheels and demountable rims. This nomenclature and accompanying figures are intended to define fundamental wide base disc wheels and demountable rim terms. The dimensions given are those necessary to maintain serviceability and interchangeability of the wide base disc wheels and demountable rims with standard hardware.