Technical Paper
A Systems Modeling Methodology for Evaluation of Vehicle Aggressivity in the Automotive Accident Environment
2001-03-05
2001-01-1172
A systems modeling approach is presented for assessment of harm in the automotive accident environment. The methodology is presented in general form and then applied to evaluate vehicle aggressivity in frontal crashes. The methodology consists of parametric simulation of several controlled accident variables, with case results weighted by the relative frequency of each specific event. A hierarchy of models is proposed, consisting of a statistical model to define the accident environment and assign weighting factors for each crash situation case, and vehicle and occupant models for kinematic simulation of crash events. Head and chest injury results obtained from simulation are converted to harm vectors, in terms of probabilistic Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) distributions based on previously defined risk analyses. These harm vectors are weighted by each case’s probability as defined by the statistical model, and summed to obtain a total estimate of harm for the accident environment.