OOP air bag tests using the THOR-NT

Lu, Zi; Chan, Philemon; Ridella, Stephen A.; Martin, Peter G.

Affiliations

¹L-3/Jaycor, San Diego, CA, USA

²National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C., USA

Abstract

An experimental study of driver side air bag loads for out-of-position (OOP) occupants at the ISO-1 (chin on bag) position was performed using the 50th percentile THOR-NT dummy. The main objective was to observe the response of the dummy under exposures to various types of air bags. Dummy sensitivity to the air bags was evaluated in terms of upper neck loads and head acceleration. Five types of late-model fleet air bag modules were used in a total of ten tests (two repeat tests per air bag). Sealed tank tests were also performed to characterize the five different air bag inflators. For one bag, the THOR-NT produced very repeatable measurements. For other bag types, the THOR-NT exposed the variability of the air bags, especially in its upper neck moment measurements. The high-speed videos confirmed the inflation variability of those air bags. The THOR-NT was able to segregate the moment at the head/neck pin joint (representing human occipital condyles) from the total head/neck cross-sectional moment. The THOR-NT performed smoothly throughout the test and was generally user-friendly. A limitation is recognized that only two air bags for each model were used for repeat tests.

Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv20/07-0293-O.pdf

Cited Works (6)

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