Driver Crash Safety: Injury Risk and Sled Test Specification Modernization in Motorsport

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Abstract

Accidents or unintentional injuries are continually listed among the top five causes of death in the United States. More than an estimated 7.2 million police reported motor vehicle crashes (MVC) accounted for 37,461 fatalities in the United States during 2016. While traffic fatalities have followed a general downward trend over the last several decades when adjusted for miles traveled, opportunity for driver safety improvements remain. Motorsport participants present a unique subset of drivers subjected to MVCs. While driver safety has always been a primary goal in motorsports, during the first few years of the twenty first century a large and deliberate effort to advance driver safety in National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Incorporated (NASCAR) was undertaken. Notable advancements resulting from this effort included compulsory use of head and neck restraint (HNR) devices, introduction of the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction Barrier (SAFER Barrier) and advancements in driver restraint systems. These changes transformed the safety of motorsports. As motorsport driver safety research continues, enhancements are investigated and analyzed. While motorsport safety research often includes human body models (HBMs), currently the primary means of assessing motorsport safety equipment efficacy is empirical testing with anthropomorphic test device (ATDs). This study sought to continue the prior successes of enhancing motorsport driver safety. This was accomplished through evaluation of a current motorsport safety equipment test method, identifying and assessing improvements and modernizations of those methods, formulating new safety equipment sled test acceleration pulses and increasing the understanding of motorsport driver injury risk.

This research is comprised of three parts:

The first part of this study employs a sled test series to evaluate the repeatability of the current SFI Foundation, Inc (SFI), 38.1 HNR test specification and explore the effects of a polyester seat belt restraint system.
The second part of this study uses the NASCAR Safety and Crash Analysis (NSCA) database to develop new motorsport safety equipment sled test acceleration pulses.
The third part of this study develops relationships between motorsport crash characteristics and driver injury risk.

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Cited By (1)

Year	Entry
2020	Decker WB. Utilizing Simplified Human Body and Countermeasure Models for Head Injury Prevention in Contact and Motor Sports [PhD thesis]. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University; September 2020.