The reasons for the development of a new side impact dummy and its design and testing are described. The necessity for a new side impact dummy was demonstrated to the NHTSA in 1978 when comparisons were made of the lateral impact responses of both the part 572 and cadavers in indentical test conditions. These comparisons indicated that the dummy structure was much too stiff laterally. This was particularly evident in the shoulder area where the clavicle casting of the dummy provided an essentially rigid load path between the arm and the spine assembly. After new designing, new developing and new testing the current side impact dummy design is considered by NHTSA to possess sufficient biofidelity, repeatability, reproducibility, and durability for use in a 27 element test matrix designed to evaluate the NHTSA deformable barrier, test conditions, injury criteria, and vehicle modification concepts.
Abstract