Occupant Protection in Far Side Crashes (original) (raw)
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Injury reduction opportunities of far side impact countermeasures
Annals of advances in automotive medicine / Annual Scientific Conference ... Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine. Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine. Scientific Conference, 2008
Over 17,000 non-struck or far side occupants in side and rollover crashes are seriously or fatally injured annually in the US. Although no legal or rating tests exist for far side crashes, test methods including appropriate dummies as well as countermeasures have been recently suggested. The aim of this study was to establish the incidence and risk of injury / fatality as a function of vehicle change in velocity (Deltav) for the most frequent injuries of belted, far side occupants in side impacts. The study was based upon the NASS/CDS 1995-2006 records of 5,653 occupants exposed to a far side crash. 401 of these were seriously or fatally injured. Combining this data with new and previously published crash test results, the potential opportunities of various concepts of far side countermeasures were evaluated. Head/thorax injuries caused by interaction with the struck side interior were found to dominate. Countermeasures such as side support airbags and altered three-point belt geome...
2001
Side impact crashes account for a substantial proportion of injuries and harm to Australian passenger car occupants. Twenty five percent of serious casualties and 28% of fatalities to vehicle occupants in Victoria occurred from side impacts. This crash configuration accounted for one-third of vehicle occupant harm (approximately A$l billion annually) during the early nineties. This project aimed to develop a method for optimising the safety systems of new passenger vehicles to minimise occupant harm in side impact collisions. A representative sample of crashes and injuries to occupants in Australian passenger cars involved in real-world side impact crashes was analysed in terms of injury incidence and societal harm. The analysis of side impact crash data has been used to set the priorities for the development of a means of assessing injury in side impacts. The available human impact tolerance data for side impacts was reviewed, as a basis for the development of the necessary Injury ...
Accident Analysis & Prevention, 1993
Improvements to the passive safety of cars in lateral collisions are of great importance. This study of injuries in car side collisions in Sweden by the use of two evaluation methods has been performed to establish the basis for future development of protective systems for this type of accident. The Folksam car accident data file has been used. Injuries were found to be twice as common for near-side than for far-side* occupants in car to car impacts. Serious to fatal (AIS 3-6) injuries to belted front seat occupants in near side impacts (10% of all injuries) were compared with the estimated number of injuries to different parts of the body with risk of serious consequences (RSC)-either deaths or permanent disabilities (4.5% of all injuries). The two injury evaluation methods resulted in different ranking orders. AIS 3-6 injuries were received by the chest (37%), a~omen/~lvis (25%), and the head (15%). The RSC method gave a ranking order of head (25%), neck (2 I%), leg (1 S%), chest ( 149/o), and a~omen/~lvis ( 1 t%). The method of evaluating AIS 3-6 injuries emphasizes only the threat to life.
Improved Side Impact Protection: The Development of Injury Assessment Functions
ö Proceedings of the …, 2001
To form the link between the safety system protective capability in a crash and the cost of injury to the occupant required the development of a series of lateral impact Injury Assessment Functions (IAFs). These IAFs had to be able to predict the risk of injury, in AIS, for each of the major ...
Vehicle far-side impact crashes
Readers are directed to the full paper for a more comprehensive discussion of the issues presented here. Much of the applied vehicle side impact occupant protection research to date has concentrated on occupants seated beside the struck side of vehicles. These occupants are defined as 'near-side' occupants. Real world crash evidence however has shown that occupants seated on the side away from the struck side, defined as 'far-side' occupants, are still subject to a risk of injury. This paper examines side impact epidemiology from an injury causation perspective, and endeavours to explain evidence indicating head injuries and seat belt related injuries constitute a significant proportion of all far-side impact injuries. Injury mechanisms and key dynamic parameters governing injury severity are detailed. Computer models simulating the dynamic motion of vehicle farside occupants are described. Occupant kinematics and injury parameters from the models are then compared with real world crash case studies. The paper finally suggests vehicle design strategies which may reduce far-side injuries. Some alternative restraint systems are proposed as potential countermeasures to reduce occupant injuries.
Side Impact Injury Risk for Belted Far Side Passenger Vehicle Occupants
SAE Technical Paper Series, 2005
In a side impact, the occupants on both the struck, or near side, of the vehicle and the occupants on the opposite, or far side, of the vehicle are at risk of injury. Since model year 1997, all passenger cars in the U.S. have been required to comply with FMVSS No. 214, a safety standard that mandates a minimum level of side crash protection for near side occupants. No such federal safety standard exists for far side occupants. The mechanism of far side injury is believed to be quite different than the injury mechanism for near side injury. Far side impact protection may require the development of different countermeasures than those which are effective for near side impact protection. This paper evaluates the risk of side crash injury for far side occupants as a basis for developing far side impact injury countermeasures. Based on the analysis of NASS/CDS 1993-2002, this study examines the injury outcome of over 4500 car, light truck, and van occupants subjected to far side impact. The analysis was restricted to 3-point belted occupants. The paper evaluates the risk of far side impact injury as a function of struck body type, collision partner, delta-V, crash direction (PDOF), occupant compartment intrusion, and injury contact source. Injury risk is evaluated using the maximum injury severity for each occupant, by injury severity for each body region, and by Harm, a social cost measure.
Side Impact Crashes and Countermeasures
2005
Side impact collisions are a major road safety problem in most western countries, accounting for up to 35% of all severe road trauma and the problem is not currently addressed effectively. While crash severities tend to be relatively low, the injuries sustained to occupants seated in the struck (near side) and non-struck or far side, tend to be severe and life threatening. The most common side impacts occur at intersections (car-car crashes) and pole or tree collisions (single-vehicles). Examples of in-depth examination of side impacts show severe damage to the car and the occupants from these crashes. The paper offers a range of countermeasures to reduce these impacts or mitigate the severity of occupant injuries.
Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2005
The goal of this study was to identify variables related to vehicle design which are associated with pelvic and thoracic accelerations as measured by the driver's (near side) crash dummy during new car assessment program (NCAP) testing of motor vehicles. Vehicle specific parameters were analyzed using NCAP side impact test results. Data from national automotive sampling system, crashworthiness data system (NASS-CDS) and crash injury research and engineering network (CIREN) (both National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) injury databases) were assessed to confirm NCAP test observations. In addition, door armrest stiffness measurements were performed using a mechanical tester on a sample of 40 vehicles. NCAP data showed that of 10 variables tested using multiple linear regression, vehicle weight and door crush correlated with pelvic acceleration of the driver's crash dummy (overall, r 2 = 0.58, p = 0.002, n = 165). For thoracic trauma index (TTI) vehicle weight and peak door velocity correlated, significantly (overall, r 2 = 0.41, p = 0.03, n = 165). Mean TTI was 63.7 g with no side airbag (n = 108) and 55.6 g with a thoracic side airbag (n = 54), p = 0.01. The mean vehicle weight and door crush between airbag and no airbag groups were not significantly different. NASS-CDS data demonstrated a direct relationship between increased door crush and increased abbreviated injury score (AIS). CIREN data showed that occupants who sustained pelvic injuries had a median AIS of 3 with 24.9 cm of door crush, with abdominal injuries, a median AIS of 3 and 30 cm of crush, and with thoracic injuries, a median AIS of 4 and 34 cm of door crush. In addition, the frequency of bilateral pelvic injuries was significantly higher for subjects in CIREN crashes who were in a vehicle with a center console, but only if door intrusion was greater than 15 cm. This information may be useful in design of vehicles with greater protection in side impact crashes.
A Safety Rating for Farside Crashes
A research team from Australia, Europe and the United States has conducted the research needed to provide a technology base for far-side crash protection. To date the findings are as follows: (1) in the USA and Australia there are large opportunities in far-side impact injury reduction, especially if safety features could mitigate injuries in both far-side planar impacts and rollovers, (2) a modified MADYMO human facet model was validated for use in evaluating far-side countermeasures, (3) either the THOR-NT or the WorldSID dummy would be satisfactory test devices for assessing far-side protection with minor modifications such as changing in the location of the chest instrumentation and (4) injury criteria and risk functions for use with WorldSID in far-side crashes have been documented. There is now a sufficient technology base so that far- side protection can be evaluated and rated by consumer information tests.
Biomechanics of side impact: Injury criteria, aging occupants, and airbag technology
Journal of Biomechanics, 2007
This paper presents a survey of side impact trauma-related biomedical investigations with specific reference to certain aspects of epidemiology relating to the growing elderly population, improvements in technology such as side airbags geared toward occupant safety, and development of injury criteria. The first part is devoted to the involvement of the elderly by identifying variables contributing to injury including impact severity, human factors, and national and international field data. This is followed by a survey of various experimental models used in the development of injury criteria and tolerance limits. The effects of fragility of the elderly coupled with physiological changes (e.g., visual, musculoskeletal) that may lead to an abnormal seating position (termed out-of-position) especially for the driving population are discussed. Fundamental biomechanical parameters such as thoracic, abdominal and pelvic forces; upper and lower spinal and sacrum accelerations; and upper, middle and lower chest deflections under various initial impacting conditions are evaluated. Secondary variables such as the thoracic trauma index and pelvic acceleration (currently adopted in the United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards), peak chest deflection, and viscous criteria are also included in the survey. The importance of performing research studies with specific focus on out-of-position scenarios of the elderly and using the most commonly available torso side airbag as the initial contacting condition in lateral impacts for occupant injury assessment is emphasized.