S. M. Iskander Farooq

Model of IIHS side impact torso response measures using transfer function equations

Vehicle to vehicle crash compatibility is becoming an increasingly more important consideration during vehicle safety development due to the increasing numbers of SUVs and pickups in the vehicle fleet. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), their side impact crash test represents what happens when a passenger vehicle is struck by a pickup truck or SUV. The IIHS side impact test measures 37 different response criteria using an instrumented 5 th percentile female SID-lls ATD (anthropomorphic test device) in driver and left rear passenger seats. These measures are grouped into head and neck, torso, and pelvis and left leg regions. This paper will describe the development of transfer function equation models to assess the performance of design countermeasures by comparing the response measures of the torso region of the body. This transfer function model will be a useful tool in determining the significance of certain design parameters and making performance comparisons of design proposals. This tool will also allow safety engineers to experiment with various designs in the early stages of the development of the side impact countermeasures.

Body Concept Design for Pedestrian Head Impact

In 1996, the European Enhanced Vehicle Safety Committee, Working Group 17 (EEVC WG17) proposed a set of impact procedures to evaluate the pedestrian injury risk of vehicle fronts. These procedures address three aspects of pedestrian protection head impacts, lower limb impacts, and thigh impacts through vehicle subsystem tests. The criteria assessed during these impact tests are affected by the design of most parts of the vehicle body front-end. One of the challenges to vehicle design introduced by these tests is the impact of an adult pedestrian headform to the top of the fender. The proposed acceptance level for Head Injury Criterion (HIC) is less than 1000 during impacts at 40 kmlh. This paper uses the finite element (FE) method to predict the influence of proposed fender and shotgun design modifications aimed at meeting this target. In addition, the known issues with the implementation of these proposed changes are discussed. Although the proposed changes are shown to meet the target in the theoretical analyses presented in this paper, these changes are also demonstrated to conflict with other aspects of vehicle safety (frontal visibility and frontal high-speed impact), vehicle manufacturing, and durability.