In the United States, air bags will be required in all passenger cars and light trucks under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection. Even after full implementation of driver and passenger air bags as required by FMVSS No. 208, frontal impacts will still account for up to 10,000 fatalities and 120,000 Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) equal to or greater than 2 injuries. The objective of this research programme is to address these fatalities and injuries, and to provide a basis for the possible future upgrade of FMVSS No. 208. To date, a number of frontal offset crash tests using air bag equipped production cars have been conducted. The first test series involved moving involved moving car-to-car tests with a nominal 116 kmph (72 mph) closing speed and 60 percent engagement of the subject vehicle by the striking or bullet vehicle. In a second series, frontal offset tests were conducted similarly to the first series except that there were engagements of 50 and 70 percent of one of the subject vehicles. An additional test was conducted in this series to evaluate the effect of an oblique impact on the subject vehicle. Additional crash test evaluations include high speed full frontal rigid barrier impact tests. This paper presents an overview of the research programme and the results of crash tests. (A)
Abstract