Rollover crash study: vehicle design and occupant injuries

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Rechnitzer, George¹; Lane, John¹; Scott, Gray²

Rollover crash study: vehicle design and occupant injuries

Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV)

Affiliations

¹Accident Research Centre, Monash University

²VicRoads, Australia
Abstract

The aim of the project was to investigate the relationship between vehicle design and the nature and severity of occupant injuries. A critical appraisal of the literature was made and a detailed investigation was undertaken of 43 rollover crashes with injury severity ranging from none to fatal. From the literature, the weight of evidence indicated a relationship between roof crush and occupant injury and a particular association between roof crush and spinal cord injury.

The crash study generally supported these conclusions but also ìdentified factors which could lead to spinal cord injury when there was small roof intrusion. Another injury mechanism was found to be partial ejection of belted occupants leading to crushing head injury. Recommendations for vehicle design improvements include side window integrity, roof framing strength, geometric design of door/ roof framing, interior padding, restraint design and door integrity.

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Cited By (7)

Year	Entry
1998	Friedman D, Friedman K. Upper interior head, face and neck injury experiments. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 31–June 4, 1998; Windsor, Ontario, Canada.1772-1777.
2001	Richardson SA, Grzebieta RH, Bellion P. Proposed four ¼ turn metric to simulate rollover crashes. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 4-7, 2001; Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
2003	Richardson SA, Rechnitzer G, Grzebieta RH. A methodology for estimating vehicle rollover propensity that combines stability factor and handling metrics. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 19-22, 2003; Nagoya, Japan.
2007	Forrest S, Meyer S, Cahill A, Herbst B. Head and neck injury potential in inverted impact tests. In: Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 18-21, 2007; Lyon, France.
2009	Brumbelow ML, Teoh ER. Roof strength and injury risk in rollover crashes of passenger cars and SUVs. In: Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 15-18, 2009; Stuttgart, Germany.
2015	Mongiardini M, Grzebieta RH, Mattos GA, Bambach M, Rechnitzer G, McIntosh AS, Nevo RD. Analysis of vehicle roof weakness and potential for neck injuries from experimental and simulated dynamic rollover tests. In: Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 8-11, 2015; Gothenburg, Sweden.
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