Frontal crash tests have always been at the forefront of vehicle safety evaluation. However, the full frontal testing and 40% oblique testing that is included in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) rating system does not represent some of the severe crashes recorded in the field. NHTSA and IIHS have been investigating frontal oblique impacts with narrow, offset objects to increase the coverage of replicating real world crashes with controlled testing procedures.

The objective of this paper is to study and understand the effect of vehicle structural performance on the occupant kinematics and related injury during small front overlap crashes. As occupant kinematics and injuries are directly influenced by structural response of the vehicle, this paper focuses on effect of various structural responses with corresponding intrusions and rotations. It also investigates effectiveness of the restraint system to reduce the occupant injuries.

MADYMO software was used to create a small front overlap environment. A driver occupant was represented by 50th percentile Hybrid III dummy model. All the intruding parts (floor, dash, hinge pillar, IP, steering column, A-pillar, door, door trim) were represented by planes and hyper-ellipsoids. Time based intrusions were extracted from the small front overlap test data and applied to all intruding parts. Seat belt system, driver airbag, side airbag and curtain airbag were modeled as part of restraint system. Longitudinal (X) and lateral (Y) structural responses were applied to the MADYMO dummy. A parametric study was then designed to understand the effect of various vehicle structural responses, restraint system deployment timing, seat belt load limiters and steering wheel lateral and vertical movements on occupant kinematics and injuries.