THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION RULEMAKING PLAN GIVES HEAVY EMPHASIS TO AN UPGRADE OF SIDE IMPACT PROTECTION. A KEY ELEMENT OF THIS PLAN IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC DUMMY FOR USE IN CONJUNCTION WITH AN INJURY PERFORMANCE LEVEL. TWO ADVANCED DUMMY DESIGNS, WHOSE DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS ARE BASED UPON BIOMECHANICAL DATA, ARE CANDIDATES TO BE USED FOR THIS RULEMAKING. THEY ARE (1) A SIDE IMPACT DUMMY (SID) DESIGNED BY THE HIGHWAY SAFETY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (HSRI) AND (2) THE ASOCIATION PEUGEOT-RENAULT (APR) DUMMY FROM FRANCE. IN THIS PAPER, THESE TWO CANDIDATE DUMMY DESIGNS ARE COMPARED IN SIDE IMPACT SLED AND PENDULUM TESTS. EACH DUMMY IS EXPOSED TO A TOTAL OF SIX UNIQUE SLED/PENDULUM TESTS. THE TESTS ARE CHOSEN FOR USE IN EVALUATING BIOFIDELITY, REPEATABILITY, IMPACT STRENGTH, AND DUMMY/PADDING INTERACTION. THERE ARE TWO LEVELS OF COMPARISON FOR THE DUMMIES. FIRST, THE RAW ACCELEROMETER RESPONSE IS PROCESSED FOR COMPARISON WITH SIMILARLY PROCESSED CADAVER DATA FROM IDENTICAL IMPACT CONDITIONS. SECONDLY, USING SIDE IMPACT INJURY CRITERIA - INCLUDING THE B PARAMETER AND AVERAGE POWER - THE INJURY AS PREDICTED BY THE TWO DUMMIES IS MATCHED WITH THE AVERAGE INJURY OF CADAVERS IN IDENTICAL IMPACT ENVIRONMENTS. IN WORKING WITH THE DIFFERENT INJURY PREDICTIVE MODELS, THE AUTHORS PRESENT A METHOD OF SHOWING THAT A B PARAMETER PERFORMANCE LEVEL OF LESS THAN 6.8 (FOR THE IMPACTED SIDE UPPER RIB) LIMITS THE AIS VALUE TO UNDER 4. (A) FOR THE COVERING ABSTRACT OF SECTION 5 SEE IRRD 266063. FOR THE COVERING ABSTRACT OF THE CONFERENCE SEE IRRD 266046.
Abstract