F2008-08-131
The Technology Base for Far-side Occupant Protection
The Technology Base for Far-side Occupant Protection
Kennerly Digges, George Washington University, USA Brian Fildes. Monash University, Australia
Recent changes in US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standards have introduced additional testing requirements intended to further improve side impact protection. These standards include tests with both 50% male and 5% female dummies in near side crashes with both a pole and a movable deformable barrier. The principal benefits from these tests are in near-side crash protection. However, occupants in far-side crashes may benefit vicariously as well. An impediment to improved far-side protection has been the lack of a technical base to permit the evaluation of countermeasures. This deficiency has now been largely resolved by a research project involving participation from government, academia and industry. This paper summarizes the findings of this research and provides references to the applicable publications.
The research involved the following: o Definition of the far-side injury environment and the opportunities for injury reduction o Assessment of test devices to reproduce representative far-side crashes that produce injury o Assessment of available dummies for the evaluation of far-side countermeasures o Development of injury criteria for use with far-side dummies o Validation of computer models for use in the evaluation of far-side countermeasures
It was found that the opportunities in far-side injury reduction were as large as those in near-side protection, when far-side rollovers and far-side corner impacts were included. The IIHS test barrier was found to be a representative test device, but the test speed should be higher for far-side crashes than for near-side crashes. Either the Thor or the WorldSID dummy would be satisfactory test devices with minor modifications and changes in the location of instrumentation. Suggested injury criteria for use with WorldSID were documented. A MADYMO human facet model was validated for far-side countermeasure evaluation.
The results of this research provide designers an opportunity to consider far-side safety improvements in conjunction with their design changes to comply with the new US side impact standard.
Session: Occupant & Pedestrian Protection III