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.
Samenvatting