Products are required that both secure the wheelchair and restrain the occupant. The aim is to provide effective occupant protection for people who ride in motor vehicles while seated in wheelchairs. An international effort to develop dynamic test standards for these products has produced a compliance test protocol that includes specification of the sled deceleration-time history, the crash pulse corridor. An interlaboratory study was conducted to determine if the crash pulse corridor was sufficiently defined to produce acceptably low variation in the test results. The study, that involved four laboratories each replicating the same sled test three times, produced consistent results. The study results suggest that a reasonably precise compliance test protocol can be defined using a crash pulse corridor that is generously drawn to accommodate rather large differences in sled crash pulse shapes. (A)
Abstract