The protection of car occupants against side impact accidents needs a better knowledge of injury mechanisms and of tolerance which are necessary to propose protection criteria.
The results of the study reported in this paper give the values of pelvic fracture impact force and indicate the variation of this parameter in relation to the anthropometric parameter.
The injuries produced by these tests were compared to pelvic injuries sustained in side impact real accidents; static tests made with half a pelvis have shown that the pubic rami were the deformed part of the pelvis.
According to these findings, we have tried to correlate the impact force values and the values of a parameter linked with the bending process. This relationship have been found very well correlated. These results allow to propose a pelvic human tolerance parameter from which a protection criterion for pelvis in side impact could be derivated.