In January, 1988, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for side impact protection. In this notice, the Agency proposed that the level of side impact protection in passenger cars be assessed through full-scale crash testing. The NHTSA has conducted extensive research, as has the vehicle safety community in the U.S.A. and in Europe, to explore the use of subsystem testing for assessing side protection in passenger cars.

This paper presents the findings from a study conducted to evaluate the thoracic subsystem test device and associated test procedures, developed by the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of America (MVMA), for use in assessing side impact protection in vehicles. In the tests conducted by the NHTSA's Vehicle Research and Test Center (VRTC), the MVMA thoracic impactor was tested for its ability to produce thoracic responses for injury assessment and for its capability to differentiate between padded and unpadded doors. These tests included testing of cars fixtured to the floor as well as testing of doors in a frame.

Three series of tests were performed using the device on nine vehicle models that were previously crash tested. The data from these tests were analyzed to determine the device's capability to distinguish between padded and unpadded doors, and to distinguish performance differences in car/door/side structure designs. Subsystem test results were also compared to full-scale side impact crash test results.