The Ministry of Construction and Transportation of Korea (MOCT) has been conducted the side impact crash tests for the new passenger vehicles as a Korean New Car Assessments Programs (KNCAP) and provided crashworthiness and safety information to the public since 2003. Eleven compact passenger cars, four medium passenger cars and three SUVs and two Van type vehicles were evaluated according to the Korean side impact test protocols. Based on the test results, the most dominant factor for good star rating was the rib deflections of EuroSID-I. The next main factors were abdominal forces and pubic symphysis forces. The least influencing factors were viscous criteria and head injury criteria. Since KNCAP side impact program has been introduced, year after year, the newer vehicles gained the better grades. Especially, all SUVs and Vans with R-point over 700 mm get five stars due to higher side sill heights.

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the trends of strength of vehicle structure changes, interior package design parameters, protection zone of side impact airbag or type of airbags to add additional counter measurements of side impact performances, such as a pole type impact test.