Reactive seat design for optimum whiplash mitigation at different crash severities

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Himmetoglu, Selcuk¹; Acar, Memis²; Bouazza-Marouf, Kaddour²; Taylor, Andy J.²

Reactive seat design for optimum whiplash mitigation at different crash severities

Proceedings of the 2009 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact

Affiliations

¹Mechanical Engineering Department, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey

²Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, UK
Abstract and keywords

This paper presents the development of reusable whiplash mitigating car seats that can effectively manage the response of the seatback to rear impact for a wide range of crash severities. For this purpose, computational multi-body models of a generic car seat and a biofidelic 50th percentile male human model for rear impact are developed. Three reactive car-seat design concepts are proposed whose effectiveness are demonstrated by simulating rear impacts at severities ranging from 4.5 to 30 kph. Among the proposed seat concepts, the one which employs a modification on the conventional seatback structural design, provides the most optimum neck protection at all crash severities.

Keywords: whiplash; seats; rear impacts; sled tests; models

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Cited By (1)

Year	Entry
2017	Lechner R, Hailer I, Horion S, Steffan H. Validation of the causality of influencing seat design parameters, identified by using multivariate analysis methods, on the BioRID‐II ATD kinematics in low‐speed rear‐end impacts. In: Proceedings of the 2017 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 13-15, 2017; Antwerp, Belgium.613-622.