The protective effect of airbags and padding in side impacts : evaluation by a new subsystem test method.

Author(s)
Håland, Y. & Pipkorn, B.
Year
Abstract

This study presents a new test method, where a car door mounted on a sled impacts a test dummy. The method takes into account the two main injury causing factors in side impacts. These factors are: (1) the door to dummy impact speed; and (2) the velocity history of the door inner wall. This velocity history determines the door to dummy displacement/overlap. The new test method is used to evaluate the effect of the padding/airbag in the chest area and of the padding in the pelvis area. The chest airbag results in: (i) generally lower loadings to the head, neck and chest than chest padding (50 mm); and (ii) significantly lower loading than a stiff reference door. Soft pelvis padding (75 mm thick) effectively reduces the pelvic loads. The best configuration, chest airbag and pelvis padding, gave a considerable improvement in 48 km/h (30 mph) and 32 km/h (20 mph) side impact tests.

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Publication

Library number
C 2641 (In: C 2572 [electronic version only]) /91 / IRRD 864675
Source

In: Proceedings of the thirteenth International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles ESV, Paris, France, 4-7 November, 1991, Volume 1, p. 523-533, 28 ref.

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This publication is one of our other publications, and part of our extensive collection of road safety literature, that also includes the SWOV publications.