This paper describes the development of head protection for car occupants (the RARU Headband) that would protect the head of an occupant in a crash. The development process included the testing of candidate materials, the construction of prototypes and ultimately the evaluation of the prototypes according to test methods outlined in FMVSS 201. The evaluation was made by attaching the headband to a free motion headform, and firing the headform at 24 km/h at an unpadded beam that had similar characteristics to a vehicle A-pillar, simulating a frontal collision. The protective effect was measured by comparing the impact severity between impacts with and without the headband present. Results showed that the headband produced marked reductions in the Head Injury Criterion value compared to the unprotected headform. In beams that produced severe impacts with the unprotected headform, that exceeded the threshold set by FMVSS 201, the headband reduced the severity to safe levels. This study showed that head impact severities can be markedly reduced for car occupants by the use of moderate amounts of head protection in frontal impacts. (a).
Samenvatting