Summary of activities of the compatibility working group in Japan

Yonezawa, Hideki; Mizuno, Koji; Hirasawa, Takahiro; Kanoshima, Hitoshi; Ichikawa, Hideaki; Yamada, Shuji; Koga, Hideki; Yamaguchi, Akira; Arai, Yuji

Affiliations

¹National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory

²Nagoya University

³Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

⁴Japan Automobile Manufacture Association

⁵Japan Automobile Research Institute

⁶Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis, Japan

Abstract

In 2006, the Transport Policy Council’s Report in Japan stated that it is necessary to discuss compatibility improvement considering the traffic accident environment in Japan. In response to this report, the MLIT has launched the Compatibility Working Group in Japan. This paper summarizes the activities of the WG toward the compatibility improvement.

In the WG, accident analyses and crash tests were performed to identify the safety problem. From global accident data, it is shown that as the front rail of the opposite (or collision partner) car was higher, the injury risk to the occupant tended to be higher. Full frontal car-to-car crash tests were conducted to investigate height matching and mismatching conditions of front rails. It was suggested that matching the front rail heights between two cars provides an overall safety benefit for occupant protection, though the leg injuries may became worse. From the accident analysis and crash tests, it was recognized in the WG that the matching of the front rail heights could be the first issue to be investigated for compatibility improvement.

To evaluate the height of front rails, geometrical measurements and analysis of crash test data can be considered. The footprint of the front rails can be observed in the measured barrier force distribution of a full-width rigid barrier test. Accordingly, to evaluate the front rail heights, measurement and evaluation of the barrier force distribution using high-resolution load cells in a full-width rigid barrier test was investigated. Several methods were developed and proposed for evaluating the front rail heights based on the barrier force distributions.

Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0203.pdf

Cited Works (1)

Year	Entry
2005	Barbat S. Status of enhanced front-to-front vehicle compatibility technical working group research and commitments. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 6-9, 2005; Washington, DC.

Cited By (4)

Year	Entry
2011	Johannsen H, Adolph T, Thomson R, Edwards M, Lázaro I, Versmissen T. FIMCAR – frontal impact and compatibility assessment research: strategy and first results for future frontal impact assessment. In: Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 13-16, 2011; Washington, DC.
2011	O’Brien S. Priorities for the assessment of frontal impact compatibility. In: Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 13-16, 2011; Washington, DC.
2013	Mizuno K, Arai Y, Hosokawa N, Hollowell W. The crashworthiness of minicars in frontal impact tests. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 27-30, 2013; Seoul, South Korea.
2013	Stein M, Johannsen H, Thomson R. FIMCAR: influence of SEAS on frontal impact compatibility. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 27-30, 2013; Seoul, South Korea.