The overall objective of the VIRTUAL project is to define and demonstrate a virtual testing (VT) protocol targetting enhanced safety assessment by enabling real-world variability. This encompasses demonstration of the tool chain as such, as well as demonstration of the components of the VT protocol, by simulations using different types of simulation models. Another major objective is the development of a cost-benefit tool (CBT), enabling evaluation of different conceptual design proposals. The purpose of the VIRTUAL D3.2 report is to present and summarise the work on the VT protocol for passenger car occupants in some potential future integrated impact scenarios and novel seated positions. The VT protocol for passenger car occupants includes both adult and child occupant protection cases.
For the adult occupant protection case, the specific objectives include demonstration of the whole tool chain for rear-end impacts, demonstration of the VT protocol for novel seated positions and providing input data for the CBT. Eight sub-studies in this report address these objectives: two physical test series and six simulation series. Half of the simulation sub-studies investigated the influence of variations in seat adjustments, novel seats and seated positions when exposed to rear-end impacts. Using vehicle interior models of a front passenger seat environment, the other half explored the influence of seat position and occupant anthropometry when exposed to certain different frontal and side impact configurations. One of the sub-studies also delivered input to the CBT by providing injury risk reduction calculations for a potential countermeasure for whiplash injuries in rear-end impacts.
For the child occupant protection case, three sub-studies were performed with models representing 6-year-olds exposed to frontal impacts. Two of the sub-studies showed that the kinematics and responses of the PIPER human body model (HBM) were influenced by several parameters, such as vehicle seat adjustments, booster design and seatbelt routing when forward-facing. This emphasises that seat design as well as the seatbelt position and routing are essential design parameters for child occupant protection in current and novel seated positions. In a reverse seat position, the importance of the booster seat and vehicle seat interaction was highlighted, using a crash test dummy (ATD) the size of a 6-year-old. In that situation, the headrest of the booster seat also served as a head-restraint in a crash situation, which it was not primarily developed for. This is one of the examples of ‘misfit’ situations that were evaluated as part of the study. Other ‘misfit’ situations include deviations from the nominal vehicle seat position in relation to the seatbelt, which are likely to become more common in novel seated positions.
The VT protocol includes the possibility of employing virtual simulation test setups to study a range of parameter variations. Hence, several models were developed within the project and are available as part of the VIRTUAL project. This report includes the development of several seat models, two of which represent vehicle seats (the VIRTUAL open source (OS) Vehicle seat model and the VIRTUAL OS Chalmers lab seat model), as well as one booster seat model (the VIRTUAL OS Booster seat model). They are openly available and can be downloaded from the OpenVT platform developed within the VIRTUAL project, https://openvt.eu/. In addition, three concept seat models were developed and used in two of the simulation sub-studies.
VIRTUAL has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 768960.
