Occupant behavior and brain injury in NHTSA oblique test

Lee, Jeong Keun; Lee, Hyo bae; Jeong, Hun hee

Affiliations

¹Hyundai Mobis, Republic of Korea

Abstract

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that a large number of fatalities occurred in crashes involving poor structural interaction between the striking and the struck vehicles, such as corner impacts, oblique crashes, or impacts with narrow objects.

NHTSA proposed the oblique test that can reproduce vehicle crush, occupant kinematics, and risk of injury in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes, an offset impact between a research moving deformable barrier (RMDB) and a stationary vehicle at a 15 degree angle.

Recent research for NHTSA oblique test with THOR ATD showed the lateral movement of both occupants, so that the driver’s head contact with door or between door and steering wheel. For the far-side occupant, the head contact with center IP and the brain injury risk predicted using BrIC is higher than SOI.

The objective of this paper is to investigate and understand the effect of airbag performance on the occupant kinematics and related injury during NHTSA oblique tests. This paper focuses on effect of various airbag parameters corresponding to the dynamic stiffness.

The research integrated the injury analysis with a crash testing and computer simulation. MADYMO was used to create a NHTSA oblique test environment. Both 50th percentile THOR ATD and Hybrid III in MADYMO were respectively used to simulate occupant kinematics and injuries for the driver and passenger occupant. Airbag models for curtain airbag and passenger airbag are used in the simulations in order to understand the effect of various restraint system concepts on occupant kinematics and injuries.

In this paper, driver side airbag and passenger side airbag are investigated for both near-side occupant and farside occupant. CAE models are used to show their advantages and limitations. Further enhancements are proposed to improve the correlation of these occupant models. Passenger side airbag and driver side airbag are investigated to reduce the brain injury and head contact with compartment. NHTSA oblique test case is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the airbag variations.

Limitations of the current airbag model used for NHTSA oblique test were highlighted. Vent hole was modified to improve the head injury.

For reducing the brain injury risk of occupant in an NHTSA oblique test, it was found counter measures which didn't cause head rotation was effective.

Links

URL: http://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/24/files/24ESV-000397.PDF

Cited Works (7)

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