This report was prepared for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. It describes research to support the Commission during international discussions and collaborative research on the Q-Series child dummies and their application in European Union legislation. The research was aligned with the activities of two international task forces: the Q-Series chest and abdomen injury criteria task force, established to develop and refine injury risk curves through experimental accident reconstruction; and the Q10 side impact performance task force, investigating the biofidelity of the Q10 in whole-body side impact tests. The following subsections of this executive summary follow the principal topic areas of the research. The Q-Series chest and abdomen injury criteria task force was formed with the aim of deriving chest deflection and abdomen pressure injury risk curves for the Q-Series dummies using accident reconstruction. It was envisaged that these risk curves would build on the work of CASPER (a collaborative European project of the 7th Framework Programme) and would form the basis for new performance thresholds for United Nations (UN) Regulation 129. TRL contributed one full-scale accident reconstruction experiment to the task force, on behalf of the Commission. TRL’s accident reconstruction experiment broadly replicated the damage observed in the accident. However, there were some differences that suggested that more energy may have been dissipated through the body of the car during accident compared with the reconstruction. It is possible, therefore, that the deceleration pulse for a rear seat occupant may have been higher in the reconstruction. Nevertheless, the results of the reconstruction will be presented to the chest and abdomen injury criteria task force and a decision will be taken regarding the use of the data in developing chest and abdomen injury criteria for the Q-Series dummies. The Q10 side impact biofidelity task force was formed with the aim of evaluating the dummy and a potential shoulder upgrade kit in whole-body side impact tests, similar to those used for the assessment of adult side impact dummy biofidelity. TRL, on behalf of the Commission, scaled test conditions and biofidelity requirements (from adult datasets) for use with the Q10. We also assisted the task force in the analysis and interpretation of the results. The Q10 displayed reasonable biofidelity in the thorax region, but the shoulder and pelvis were too stiff, and the abdomen too soft, to meet the scaled whole-body biofidelity requirements. The side impact shoulder kit offered marginal improvements in shoulder and thorax biofidelity, but did not (and was not intended to) improve pelvis and abdomen biofidelity. Using the kit improved the local biofidelity of the Q10; however, its value in side impact testing on a sled or in a vehicle was not within the scope of the task force’s activities. (Author/publisher)
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