83 Unfall und Mensch
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- Alte Leute (2)
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One main objective of the EU-Project SENIORS is to provide improved methods to assess thoracic injury risk to elderly occupants. In contribution to this task paired simulations with a THOR dummy model and human body model will be used to develop improved thoracic injury risk functions. The simulation results can provide data for injury criteria development in chest loading conditions that are underrepresented in PMHS test data sets that currently proposed risk functions are based on. To support this approach a new simplified generic but representative sled test fixture and CAE model for testing and simulation were developed. The parameter definition and evaluation of this sled test fixture and model is presented in this paper. The justification and definition of requirements for this test set-up was based on experience from earlier studies. Simple test fixtures like the gold standard sled fixture are easy to build and also to model in CAE, but provide too severe belt-only loading. On the other hand a vehicle buck including production components like airbag and seat is more representative, but difficult to model and to be replicated at a different laboratory. Furthermore some components might not be available for physical tests at later stage. The basis of the SENIORS generic sled test set-up is the gold standard fixture with a cable seat back and foot rest. No knee restraint was used. The seat pan design was modified including a seat ramp. The three-point belt system had a generic adjustable load limiter. A pre-inflated driver airbag assembly was developed for the test fixture. Results of THOR test and simulations in different configurations will be presented. The configurations include different deceleration pulses. Further parameter variations are related to the restraint system including belt geometry and load limiter levels. Additionally different settings of the generic airbag were evaluated. The test set-up was evaluated and optimized in tests with the THOR-M dummy in different test configurations. Belt restraint parameters like D-ring position and load limiter setting were modified to provide moderate chest loading to the occupant. This resulted in dummy readings more representative of the loading in a contemporary vehicle than most available PMHS sled tests reported in the literature. However, to achieve a loading configuration that exposes the occupant to even less severe loading comparable to modern vehicle restraints it might be necessary to further modify the test set-up. The new generic sled test set-up and a corresponding CAE model were developed and applied in tests and simulations with THOR. Within the SENIORS project with this test set-up also volunteer and PMHS as well as HBM simulations are performed, which will be reported in other publications. The test environment can contribute in future studies to the assessment of existing and new frontal impact dummies as well as dummy improvements and related instrumentation. The test set-up and model could also serve as a new standard test environment for PMHS and volunteer tests as well as HBM simulations.
Europe has benefited from a decreasing number of road traffic fatalities. However, the proportion of older road users increases steadily. In an ageing society, the SENIORS project aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users by determining appropriate requirements towards passive vehicle safety systems. Therefore, the characteristics of road traffic crashes involving the elderly people need to be understood. This paper focuses on car occupants and pedestrians or cyclists in crashes with modern passenger cars. Ten crash databases and four hospital statistics from Europe have been analysed to answer the questions on which body regions are most frequently and severely injured in the elderly, and specific injuries sustained by always comparing older (65 years and above) with midâ€aged road users (25â€64 years). It was found that the body region thorax is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS2 or AIS3+, where as the lower extremities, head and the thorax need to be considered for older pedestrians and cyclists. Further, injury risk functions were provided. The hospital data analysis showed less difference between the age groups. The linkage between crash and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.