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Structure enhancement based on data monitored in a traditional side impact evaluation is primarily a trial and error exercise resulting in a large number of computer runs. This is because how the structure gets loaded and the degree of contribution of local structural components to resist the impact while absorbing energy during a side collision is not completely known. Developing real time complete load profiles on a body side during the time span of an impact is not an easy task and these loads cannot be calculated from that calculated at the barrier mounting plate. This paper highlights the load distribution, calculated by a procedure using computer aided engineering (CAE) tools, on a typical 2-door vehicle body side when struck by moving deformable barriers used in the insurance institute for highway safety (IIHS), EuroNCAP and LINCAP side impact evaluations.

This paper describes the development of a Bayesian estimate of vehicle safety performance. The vehicle crash testing is conducted often using a very small sample size. With these limited tests, one often has to face the following question, “what is the confidence to meet the design target or government compliance in a subsequent test?” The prediction methods will be discussed to determine the confidence in meeting overall the design requirements based on successful test results with multiple responses and design targets.

The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard or FMVSS 208 requires passenger cars, multi-purpose vehicles, trucks with less than unloaded vehicle weight of 2,495 kg either to have an automatic suppression feature or to pass the injury criteria specified under low risk deployment test requirement for a 1 year old dummy in rearward and forward facing restraints as well as a forward facing 3 and 6 year old dummy. A convertible child seat was installed in a sub-system test buck representing a passenger car environment with a one-year- old dummy in it at the passenger side seat and a passenger side airbag was deployed toward the convertible child seat. A MADYMO model was built to represent the test scenario and the model was correlated and validated to the results from the experiment.

In order to evaluate the THOR-50M as a front impact Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD) for vehicle safety design, the ATD was compared to the H3-50M in matching vehicle crash tests for 20 unique vehicle models from 2 vehicle manufacturers. For the belted driver condition, a total of fifty-four crash tests were investigated in the 56.3 km/h (35 mph) front rigid barrier impact condition. Four more tests were compared for the unbelted driver and right front passenger at 40.2 km/h (25 mph) in the flat frontal and 30-degree right oblique rigid barrier impact conditions. The two ATDs were also evaluated for their ability to predict injury risk by comparing their fleet average injury risk to Crash Investigation Sampling System (CISS) accident data for similar conditions. The differences in seating position and their effect on ATD responses were also investigated.

Described in this paper is a component test methodology to evaluate the door trim armrest performance in an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) side impact test and to predict the SID-IIs abdomen injury metrics (rib deflection, deflection rate and V*C). The test methodology consisted of a sub-assembly of two SID-IIs abdomen ribs with spine box, mounted on a linear bearing and allowed to translate in the direction of impact. The spine box with the assembly of two abdominal ribs was rigidly attached to the sliding test fixture, and is stationary at the start of the test. The door trim armrest was mounted on the impactor, which was prescribed the door velocity profile obtained from full-vehicle test. The location and orientation of the armrest relative to the dummy abdomen ribs was maintained the same as in the full-vehicle test.

This paper describes the testing and constitutive model development of polyurethane foams for characterization of their material dynamic properties. These properties are needed not only for understanding their behavior, but also for supplying essential input data to foam models, which help provide design directions through simulations of foam selection for cushioning occupant head impacts against the vehicle door and upper interior. Polyurethane foams of varying densities were tested statically and dynamically under uniaxial compressive impact loading at constant velocities of various rates and different temperatures. The test results were utilized for developing a constitutive model of polyurethane foams by taking the density, strain rate and temperature effects into consideration. Uniaxial constitutive models are developed in two ways.

Motor vehicle crashes involving child Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) remain a critical public health concern in the United States. While previous studies successfully utilized the crash scenario typology to examine traffic crashes, these studies focus on all types of motor vehicle crashes thus the method might not apply to VRU crashes. Therefore, to better understand the context and causes of child VRU crashes on the U.S. road, this paper proposes a multi-step framework to define crash scenario typology based on the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS). A comprehensive examination of the data elements in FARS and CRSS was first conducted to determine elements that could facilitate crash scenario identification from a systematic perspective. A follow-up context description depicts the typical behavioral, environmental, and vehicular conditions associated with an identified crash scenario.

Full vehicle dynamic crash tests are commonly used in the development of rollover detection sensors, algorithms and occupant protection systems. However, many published studies have utilized component level rollover test fixtures for rollover related occupant kinematics studies and restraint system evaluation and development. A majority of these fixtures attempted to replicate only the rotational motion that occurs during the free flight phase of a typical full vehicle rollover crash test. In this paper, a description of the methods used to design a new dynamic component rollover test device is presented. A brief summary of several existing rollover component test methods is included. The new system described in this paper is capable of replicating the transfer of lateral energy into rotational vehicle motion that is present in many tripped laboratory based rollover crash tests.

An eight-group taxonomy was created to classify real-world frontal crashes from the Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) component of the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS). Three steps were taken to develop the taxonomy: (1) frontal-impact towaway crashes were identified by examining 1985-2005 model year light passenger vehicles with Collision Deformation Classification (CDC) data from the 1995-2005 calendar years of NASS; (2) case reviews, engineering judgments, and categorization assessments were conducted on these data to produce the eight-group taxonomy; and (3) two subsets of the NASS dataset were analyzed to assess the consistency of the resulting taxonomic-group frequencies. “Full-engagement” and “Offset” crashes were the most frequent crash types, each contributing approximately 33% to the total. The group identified as “D, Y, Z No-Rail” was the most over-represented crash type for vehicles with at least one seriously-injured occupant.

A general failure criterion for spot welds is proposed with consideration of the plastic anisotropy and the separation speed for crash applications. A lower bound limit load analysis is conducted to account for the failure loads of spot welds under combinations of three forces and three moments. Based on the limit load solution and the experimental results, an engineering failure criterion is proposed with correction factors determined by different spot weld tests. The engineering failure criterion can be used to characterize the failure loads of spot welds with consideration of the effects of the plastic anisotropy, separation speed, sheet thickness, nugget radius and combinations of loads. Spot weld failure loads under uniaxial and biaxial opening loads and those under combined shear and twisting loads from experiments are shown to be characterized well by the engineering failure criterion.

Vehicle structure crashworthiness design is one of the most challenging problems in product development and it has been studied for decades. Challenges still remain, which include developing a reliable and systematic approach for general crashworthiness design problems, which can be used to design an optimum vehicle structure in terms of topology, shape, and size, and for both structural layout and material layout. In this paper, an advanced and systematic approach is presented, which is called Magic Cube (MQ) approach for crashworthiness design. The proposed MQ approach consists of three major dimensions: Decomposition, Design Methodology, and General Considerations. The Decomposition dimension is related to the major approaches developed for the crashworthiness design problem, which has three layers: Time (Process) Decomposition, Space Decomposition, and Scale Decomposition.

A passenger airbag is an important part of a vehicle restraint system which provides supplemental protection to an occupant in a crash event. New Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards No. 208 requires considering multiple crash scenarios at different speeds with various sizes of occupants both belted and unbelted. The increased complexity of the new requirements makes the selection of an optimal airbag shape a new challenge. The aim of this research is to present an automated optimization framework to facilitate the airbag shape design process by integrating advanced tools and technologies, including system integration, numerical optimization, robust assessment, and occupant simulation. A real-world frontal impact application is used to demonstrate the methodology.

Crash safety is a complex engineering field wherein a good understanding of energy attenuation capabilities due to an impact of various components and between different/adjacent components in the context of the vehicle environment is imperative. During a frontal impact of the vehicle, an occupant’s lower extremity tends to move forward and could impact one or more components of the instrument panel assembly. A glove box component design may have an influence on occupant’s lower extremity injuries when exposed to the occupant’s knees during a frontal impact. The objective of the present numerical study was to develop a novel glove box design with energy absorbing ribs and then comparing the results with the glove box with a knee airbag (KAB) design to help reduce anthropomorphic test device (ATD) lower leg responses.

Thermal comfort in automotive seating has been studied and discussed for a long time. The available research, because it is focused on the components, has not produced a model that provides insight into the human-seat system interaction. This work, which represents the beginning of an extensive research program, aims to establish the foundation for such a model. This paper will discuss the key physiological, psychological, and biomechanical factors related to perceptions of thermal comfort in automotive seats. The methodology to establish perceived thermal comfort requirements will also be presented and discussed.

A dual-chambered passenger airbag was developed for the 2011 USNCAP to minimize neck loading for the belted 5th female dummy while restraining the unbelted 50th dummy for FMVSS208. This unique, patented design adaptively controlled venting between chambers based on occupant stature. A patented pressure-responsive vent on the second chamber permitted aspiration into the second chamber before a delayed outflow to the environment. The delayed flow through the pressure-responsive vent from the second chamber acted like a pressure-limiting membrane vent to advantageously reduce the injury assessment values for the HIC and the Nij for the 5th female dummy.

An eleven-group taxonomy was created to classify real-world side crashes from the Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) component of the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS). Three steps were taken to develop the classification scheme: (1) side-impact towaway crashes were identified by examining 1987-2016 model year light passenger vehicles with Collision Deformation Classification (CDC) data from the 1997-2015 calendar years of NASS; (2) case reviews, engineering judgments, and categorization assessments were conducted on these data to produce the eleven-group taxonomy; and (3) taxonomic groups were reviewed relative to regulated crash test procedures. Two of the taxonomic groups were found to have the most frequent crash types, each contributing approximately 22% to the total, followed closely by a third taxonomic group contributing approximately 19%.

Making manned and remotely-controlled wheeled and tracked vehicles easier to drive, especially off-road, is of great interest to the U.S. Army. If vehicles are easier to drive (especially closed hatch) or if they are driven autonomously, then drivers could perform additional tasks (e.g., operating weapons or communication systems), leading to reduced crew sizes. Further, poorly driven vehicles are more likely to get stuck, roll over, or encounter mines or improvised explosive devices, whereby the vehicle can no longer perform its mission and crew member safety is jeopardized. HMI technology and systems to support human drivers (e.g., autonomous driving systems, in-vehicle monitors or head-mounted displays, various control devices (including game controllers), navigation and route-planning systems) need to be evaluated, which traditionally occurs in mission-specific (and incomparable) evaluations.

Understanding the variation in the deployment times for crash sensor systems is important to ensure robust performance of a crash sensor system. Increases in both the numbers of crash modes and deployable devices have reduced the margins for the decisions about when to deploy any given device. Currently, the industry practice is to run a sweep over the potential sources of variation, recording the minimum and maximum deployment time. Questions such as: “How often do the extremes occur?” or “Are there multiple peaks in the deployment time?” can not be answered. This work uses numerical analysis methods to build on the current sweep methodology to obtain information on the distribution of the deployment times so that questions such as these can be answered when evaluating sensor calibrations. The end result is better informed engineering decisions during the calibration development.

Utilization of statistical methods can improve vehicle stopping-distance projections and reduce the complexity of brake deceleration models. These techniques can be very useful in the course of ascertaining whether an untested vehicle conforms to the applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS), but they have much broader uses in the design of brake systems.

The purpose of this study was to use detailed medical information to evaluate thoracic injuries in elderly patients in real world frontal crashes. In this study, we used analytic morphomics to predict the effect of torso geometry on rib fracture, a major source of injury for the elderly. Analytic morphomics extracts body features from computed tomography (CT) scans of patients in a semi-automated fashion. Thoracic injuries were examined in front row occupants involved in frontal crashes from the International Center for Automotive Medicine (ICAM) database. Among these occupants, two age groups (age < 60 yr. [Nonelderly] and age ≥ 60 yr. [Elderly]) who suffered severe thoracic injury were analyzed. Regression analyses were conducted to investigate injury outcomes using variables for vehicle, demographics, and morphomics. Compared to the nonelderly group, the elderly group sustained more rib fractures.