Benefit of adaptive occupant restraint systems with focus on the new US-NCAP rating requirements

Sohr, Steffen; Heym, Axel

Affiliations

Abstract

Against the background of an always growing traffic volume on the roads and the thereby resulting aim to reduce the number of traffic fatalities continuously, the recent years saw a number of research projects and field studies.

As a result of this, legal tests and consumer requirements have been significantly tightened. Consequently, car manufacturers and suppliers are faced with completely new challenges as to the adaptation of occupant restraint systems. Here, socalled “smart” restraint systems gained more and more importance.

The US-NCAP requirements for the MY 2010, adopted by NHTSA in 2008, are a new milestone for the improvement of occupant protection. For the minimization of the total injury risk in frontal impacts, the protection criteria for head (HIC), neck (Nij), and thorax (chest deflection) are under special consideration.

With regard to the new requirements, it seems to be quite challenging to achieve a very good rating in frontal crash tests by standard restraint systems, especially when different dummy sizes and the legal requirements according to FMVSS 208 have to be considered.

The present study shall demonstrate which potential adaptive airbag and seat belt technologies can possess. Thus, the performance of different concepts of adaptive airbag techniques, knee bags, double pretensioning systems and adaptive force limiter are compared. Following, an evaluation of the different concepts as to their efficiency and benefits in terms of critical injury criteria will be made. Finally, a survey is given on how the consequent use of adaptive restraint systems can address the future requirements (law, ratings).

Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0322.pdf

Cited By (9)

Year	Entry
2013	Katagiri M, Miyazaki Y, Pramudita J, Ujihashi S. Development of occupant injury prediction algorithms for advanced automatic collision notification by numerical crash reconstructions. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 27-30, 2013; Seoul, South Korea.
2015	Davis ML, Vavalle NA, Gayzik FS. An evaluation of mass-normalization using 50th and 95th percentile human body finite element models in frontal crash. In: Proceedings of the 2015 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 9-11, 2015; Lyon, France.608-621.
2015	Meyer SE, Nelson AO, Hock DA, McMillin JT, Herbst BR. Assessing the effects of load limiting retractors on occupant motion. In: Proceedings of the 2015 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 9-11, 2015; Lyon, France.114-129.
2018	Decker W, Koya B, Gayzik FS. Validation of detailed organ modularity in a simplified human body model. In: Proceedings of the 2018 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 12-14, 2018; Athens, Greece.342-354.
2015	Schoell SL, Weaver AA, Urban JE, Jones DA, Stitzel JD, Hwang E, Reed MP, Rupp JD. Development and validation of an older occupant finite element model of a mid-sized male for investigation of age-related injury risk. Stapp Car Crash J. November 2015;59:359-383.
2015	Tsoi AH-d. The Potential of Event Data Recorders to Improve Impact Injury Assessment in Real World Crashes [PhD thesis]. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; May 27, 2015.
2015	Vavalle NA. The Application of a Radial Basis Function Morphing Technique to a Validated Full Human Body Finite Element Model [PhD thesis]. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University; May 2015.
2017	Davis ML. Development and Full Body Validation of a 5th Percentile Female Finite Element Model [PhD thesis]. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University; January 2017.
2018	Decker WB. Modular Use of Human Body Models of Various Complexities in the Head and Thoraco-Abdominal Regions [Master's thesis]. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University; May 2018.