A program of research was conducted to examine the validity of a digital computer simulation of an automobile occupant during a frontal, head-on collision. The simulation is designed to permit a detailed study of the effects of several types of restraint systems on occupant responses in a confined compartment, where injury-producing contact forces occur. The effects on occupant responses produced by the positions, orientations, and load-deflection properties of contacted interior surfaces are also simulated. This progress report covers one phase of a CAL long-range program of development of simulation techniques for study of occupant/vehicle and vehicle/obstacle collision responses.

Detailed comparisons are presented of responses from instrumented sled tests and corresponding computed responses from the simulation. The comparisons include forces in restraint belts and on contacted surfaces, accelerations of the dummy, and the detailed kinematics of the dummy itself. The results of repeat experimental runs of several of the test conditions are also displayed.

It is concluded that the comparisons between simulated and experimental time-histories show good agreement in the timing of events, the occupant kinematics, the general levels of peak values, and the waveforms of responses, in view of recognized shortcomings in some of the parameter data and recognized limitations imposed by simplified analytical representations.