European safety community has been actively involved in side impact research and has made significant contributions. One of the most recent is the development of the Euro-SID (European Side impact Dummy) which contains an abdominal injury detection element. This report details an analysis of the dummy abdomen and the cadaver tests upon which it is based.

Specifically, the analysis examines the empirical basis, and final design of the Euro-SID abdomen with the following conclusions proffered:​ 1)

The inclusion of an abdominal injury prediction element in the European Side impact Dummy is an important advancement in anthropomorphic dummy design.2)

The peak force-maximum compression criterion chosen as the predictor of injury is valid, given the results from the 8 cadaver tests upon which it is based. Eowever, the tol erance should not be defined as a single permutation of that criterion, but rather any combination of peak force and maximum compression that yields the same value should be viewed as equally likely to cause injury. The current abdomen design responds to a single permutation of force and compression, viz. 4500 N and 3.9 cm. However, a continuous measurement is necessary to determine the other combinations of peak force and compression that occur under different test conditions.3)

While the peak force-maximum compression product does correlate well with injury severity, the maximum velocity-maximum compression product also correlates well with injury severity. By extension, the Viscous Criterion should also be well correlated with injury severity. Therefore, an attempt should be made to incorporate a continuous deformation measurement capability into the abdomen to monitor the Viscous Criterion. This should be considerably easier than a continuous force and compression measurement.