Evaluation of far-side occupant injuries and interaction with nearside occupant under FMVSS214 side impact test requirements

Abstract

Over the last two decades, there has been extensive research work carried out on the dynamics and potential injuries to the occupants positioned at the struck-side in automobile side impact accidents. With the development of strong vehicle body structures and other passive safety systems, these advances have been proven to effectively reduce probability of injuries and deaths to these "nearside" occupants. The advancement of airbag technologies, seatbelts, side impact door beams etc., have reduced the severity of injuries to the driver during any side impact accidents. The regulation on automotive safety and occupant protection in side impacts require only to examination of the nearside occupant/driver. Real world data has shown that occupants seated away from the nearside called as "far-side" occupants, could also be subjected to serious injuries as well. Hence, it is important to investigate the crash responses and injury potential of far-side occupants individually along with the occupants on the nearside for body-to-body contacts in side impact accidents. The main objective of this research is to examine side impact epidemiology from an injury perspective to far-side occupants. Effort is made here to examine the thorax and pelvic injuries and the role of seatbelts as per FMVSS 214 test conditions. The simulations are carried out with nearside and the far-side impacts by using finite element models of a typical compact car, a moving deformable barrier (MDB), a EuroSID-2 dummy with rib extensions (ES-2RE) and a three-point seatbelt. Occupant kinematics and injury parameters are then compared for both unbelted and belted passengers to investigate the significance of the seatbelts. The results from this study demonstrates and quantifies the differences in the dynamics and injury potential to the nearside and the far-side occupants individually, and their interactions when both are present.