Aloke Prasad

NHTSA’s Vehicle Compatibility Research Program

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is conducting a research program to investigate the crash compatibility of passenger cars, light trucks and vans (LTV’s) in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. NHTSA has conducted a series of eight full-scale vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests to evaluate vehicle compatibility issues. Tests were conducted using four bullet vehicles representing different vehicle classes striking a mid-size sedan in both side and oblique frontal crash configurations. The test results show a good correlation between vehicle aggressivity metrics and injury parameters measured in the struck car for the frontal offset tests, but not for the side impact tests.

NHTSA's Compatibility Research Program Update

This paper provides an update of NHTSA’s research activities in vehicle compatibility and aggressivity. This paper presents newly initiated efforts underway to develop test assessment methodologies intended to evaluate vehicle compatibility. The rigid barrier load cell data collected from 18 years of the agency’s New Car Assessment Program testing are reviewed to evaluate potential test measures that may be used to evaluate a vehicle’s compatibility in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes. These parameters are then evaluated using a series of vehicle-to-vehicle and moving deformable barrier (MDB)to-vehicle tests. In these tests, the face of the MDB has been instrumented with an array of load cells to compute test measures. This study is part of NHTSA’s ongoing compatibility research program and is being coordinated with the IHRA compatibility group.

Design Considerations for a Compatibility Test Procedure

A major focus of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) vehicle compatibility and aggressivity research program is the development of a laboratory test procedure to evaluate compatibility. This paper is written to explain the associated goals, issues, and design considerations and to review the preliminary results from this ongoing research program. One of NHTSA’s activities supporting the development of a test procedure involves investigating the use of an mobile deformable barrier (MDB) into vehicle test to evaluate both the self-protection (crashworthiness) and the partnerprotection (compatibility) of the subject vehicle. For this development, the MDB is intended to represent the median or expected crash partner. This representiveness includes such vehicle characteristics as weight, size, and frontal stiffness. This paper presents distributions of vehicle measurements based on 1996 fleet registration data. While there is still considerable work to be done to develop meaningful aggressivity metrics that relate to realworld crash performance, this paper summarizes NHTSA’s work to date in this area.

NHTSA's Frontal Offset Research Program

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is conducting research programs to develop test procedures to reduce death and injury, in particular debilitating lower extremity injuries in frontal offset collisions. This paper presents updated results of Offset Deformable Barrier (ODB) crash tests conducted for the NHTSA. The ODB crash tests were conducted with 50th percentile male and 5th percentile female Hybrid III dummies fitted with advanced lower legs, Thor-Lx/HIIIr and Thor-FLx/HIIIr, to assess the potential for debilitating and costly lower limb injuries. This paper also investigates the implications that the ODB test procedure may have on fleet compatibility by evaluating the results from vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests.