Rear-end collisions: the effect of the seat-belt and the crash pulse on occupant motion

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Nilson, Gert¹; Svensson, Mats Y.¹; Lövsund, Per¹; Häland, Yngve²; Wiklund, Kristina³

Rear-end collisions: the effect of the seat-belt and the crash pulse on occupant motion

Proceedings of the 14th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV)

Affiliations

¹Dept. of Injury Prevention, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

²Autoliv AB, Sweden

³SAAB Automobile AB, Sweden
Abstract

Neck injuries in rear-end collisions and the societal costs associated with these injuries are increasing yearly. This situation calls for further research in the field, one area of interest in this context being the influence of the various vehicle compartment components on the human body response in the interaction with the body during a rear-end impact.

Rear-end collision sled tests were cam'ed out in order to investigate the influence of a standard three-point retractor seat-belt system and that of the crash pulse magnitude on occupant response. A mathematical (MADYMO) model of the test set-up was implemented and validated. The model was used to further investigate the influence of the parameters.

According to sled test results, the seat-belt system did not have any significant effect on dummy response. However, using the MADYMO model it was possible to vary the friction between occupant and seat-back, which resulted in a certain influence of the seat-belt in limiting the ramping up of the dummy along the seat-back at high velocity changes (Δv) and low seat-back friction.

For a given velocity change a doubled sled crash-pulse magnitude resulted in increased linear accelerations, angular accelerations and neck loads in the dummy.

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Cited By (9)

Year	Entry
1996	Thunnissen JGM, van Ratingen MR, Beusenberg MC, Janssen EG. A dummy neck for low severity rear impacts. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 13-16, 1996; Melbourne, Australia.1665-1678.
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2009	DeRosia JJ. Role of Gender and Size in Biomechanics of Rear Impact Wilwaukee, WI: Marquette University; May 2009.
2019	Tatem WM. The Crash Injury Risk to Rear Seated Passenger Vehicle Occupants [PhD thesis]. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; December 13, 2019.