Title :
Biomechanics of Side Impact Injuries: Evaluation of Seat Belt Restraint System, Occupant Kinematics and Injury Potential
Author :
Kumaresan, Srirangam ; Sances, Anthony, Jr. ; Carlin, Fred ; Frieder, Russell ; Friedman, Keith ; Renfroe, David
fDate :
Aug. 30 2006-Sept. 3 2006
Abstract :
Side impact crashes are the second most severe motor vehicle accidents resulting in serious and fatal injuries. One of the occupant restraint systems in the vehicle is the three point lap/shoulder harness. However, the lap/shoulder restraint is not effective in a far-side crash (impact is opposite to the occupant location) since the occupant may slip out of the shoulder harness. The present comprehensive study was designed to delineate the biomechanics of far-side planar crashes. The first part of the study involves a car-to-car crash to study the crash dynamics and occupant kinematics; the second part involves an epidemiological analysis of NASS/CDS 1988-2003 database to study the distribution of serious injury; the third part includes the mathematical MADYMO analysis to study the occupant kinematics in detail; and the fourth part includes an in-depth analysis of a real world far-side accident to delineate the injury mechanism and occupant kinematics. Results indicate that the shoulder harness is ineffective in far-side crashes. The upper torso of the belted driver dummy slips out of the shoulder harness and interacted with the opposite vehicle interior such as the door panel. The unbelted occupants had a similar head injury severity pattern compared to belted occupants. The present study is another step to advance towards better understanding of the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of side impact injuries
Keywords :
biomechanics; impact testing; road accidents; vehicle dynamics; NASS-CDS 1988-2003 database; belted dummy driver; biomechanics; car-to-car crash; crash dynamics; epidemiological analysis; far-side planar crashes; in-depth analysis; injury potential; mathematical MADYMO analysis; occupant kinematics; seat belt restraint system; serious injury distribution; severe motor vehicle accidents; shoulder harness; side impact injuries; upper torso; Accidents; Belts; Biomechanics; Computer crashes; Databases; Injuries; Kinematics; Vehicle crash testing; Vehicle dynamics; Vehicles; Biomechanics; Injury; Side Impact; Trauma;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2006. EMBS '06. 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
New York, NY
Print_ISBN :
1-4244-0032-5
Electronic_ISBN :
1557-170X
DOI :
10.1109/IEMBS.2006.259384