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Test and assessment procedures for passive pedestrian protection of passenger cars are in place for many years within world-wide regulations as well as consumer test programmes. Nevertheless, recent accident investigations show a stagnation of pedestrian fatality numbers on European roads alongside increasing injury severities for older road users. The EU-funded SENIORS (Safety ENhancing Innovations for Older Road userS) project developed and evaluated a thorax injury prediction tool (TIPT) for later incorporation within test and assessment procedures. Accident data indicates an increasing portion of AIS2 and AIS3+ thoracic injuries of older pedestrians and cyclists which are currently not assessed in any test procedure for vulnerable road users. Therefore, SENIORS focused on the development of a test tool predicting the risk of rib fractures of vulnerable road users (VRU). While injury risk functions were reanalyzed, human body model (HBM) simulations against categorized generic vehicle frontends served as input for the definition of test setups and corresponding impact parameters. TIPT component tests against a generic frontend and an actual vehicle were used for the evaluation of the technical feasibility. The TIPT component tests shows the general feasibility of a test procedure for the assessment of thoracic injuries, with good repeatability and reproducibility of kinematics and results. Impact parameters such as the inclination angles of the thorax, angles of the velocity vector and impact speeds well replicate the parameters gained from the HBM simulations. The proposed markup and assessment scheme offers the possibility of a homogeneous evaluation of the protection potential of vehicle frontends while maintaining justifiable testing efforts. During evaluation testing, the proposed requirements were entirely met. The developed prototype of TIPT and launching system offer impact angles and speeds as suggested by HBM simulations. However, since thorax impacts during pedestrian accidents do not occur perpendicularly to the vehicle surface in most cases, the TIPT built-in linear potentiometers do not acquire the true resultant intrusions on the ribcage and thus, TIPT rib deflections do not reflect the actual human injury risk. However; for the impact forward to the bonnet leading edge, the TIPT seems applicable without further modifications. The test and assessment procedures using the TIPT offer for the first time the possibility of replicating the kinematics of a pedestrian thorax with a component test. The developed assessment scheme gives a first indication on how the risk for thoracic injuries could be implemented within the Euro NCAP Box 3 assessment. Future development of the TIPT may focus on implementing a rib cage that can deflect in all axes in a humanlike way.
A biofidelic flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) has been developed from the year 2000 onwards and evaluated by a technical evaluation group (Flex-TEG) of UN-ECE GRSP. A recently established UN-ECE GRSP Informal Group on GTR9 Phase 2 is aiming at introducing the FlexPLI within world-wide regulations on pedestrian safety (Phase 2 of GTR No. 9 as well as the new UN regulation 127 on pedestrian safety) as a test tool for the assessment of lower extremity injuries in lateral vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents. Besides, the FlexPLI has already been introduced within JNCAP and is on the Euro NCAP roadmap for 2014. Despite of the biofidelic properties in the knee and tibia sections, several open issues related to the FlexPLI, like the estimation of the cost benefit, the feasibility of vehicle compliance with the threshold values, the robustness of the impactor and of the test results, the comparability between prototype and production level and the finalization of certification corridors still needed to be solved. Furthermore, discussions with stakeholders about a harmonized lower legform to bumper test area are still going on. This paper describes several studies carried out by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) regarding the benefit due to the introduction of the FlexPLI within legislation for type approval, the robustness of test results, the establishment of new assembly certification corridors and a proposal for a harmonized legform to bumper test area. Furthermore, a report on vehicle tests that previously had been carried out with three prototype legforms and were now being repeated using legforms with serial production status, is given. Finally, the paper gives a status report on the ongoing simulation and testing activities with respect to the development and evaluation of an improved test procedure with upper body mass for assessing pedestrian femur injuries.
Test and assessment procedures for passive pedestrian protection based on developments by the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) have been introduced in world-wide regulations and consumer test programmes, with considerable harmonization between these programmes. Nevertheless, latest accident investigations reveal a stagnation of pedestrian fatality numbers on European roads running the risk of not meeting the European Union- goal of halving the number of road fatalities by the year 2020. The branch of external road user safety within the EC-funded research project SENIORS under the HORIZON 2020 framework programme focuses on investigating the benefit of modifications to pedestrian test and assessment procedures and their impactors for vulnerable road users with focus on the elderly. Injury patterns of pedestrians and cyclists derived from the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) show a trend of AIS 2+ and AIS 3+ injuries getting more relevant for the thorax region in crashes with newer cars (Wisch et al., 2017), while maintaining the relevance for head and lower extremities. Several crash databases from Europe such as GIDAS and the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition (STRADA) also show that head, thorax and lower extremities are the key affected body regions not only for the average population but in particular for the elderly. Therefore, the SENIORS project is focusing on an improvement of currently available impactors and procedures in terms of biofidelity and injury assessment ability towards a better protection of the affected body regions, incorporating previous results from FP 6 project APROSYS and subsequent studies carried out by BASt. The paper describes the overall methodology to develop revised FE impactor models. Matched human body model and impactor simulations against generic test rigs provide transfer functions that will be used for the derivation of impactor criteria from human injury risk functions for the affected body regions. In a later step, the refined impactors will be validated by simulations against actual vehicle front-ends. Prototyping and adaptation of test and assessment procedures as well as an impact assessment will conclude the work of the project at the final stage. The work will contribute to an improved protection of vulnerable road users focusing on the elderly. The use of advanced human body models to develop applicable assessment criteria for the revised impactors is intended to cope with the paucity of actual biomechanical data focusing on elderly pedestrians. In order to achieve optimized results in the future, the improved test methods need to be implemented within an integrated approach, combining active with passive safety measures. In order to address the developments in road accidents and injury patterns of vulnerable road users, established test and assessment procedures need to be continuously verified and, where needed, to be revised. The demographic change as well as changes in the vehicle fleet, leading to a variation of accident scenarios, injury frequencies and injury patterns of vulnerable road users are addressed by the work provided by the SENIORS project, introducing updated impactors for pedestrian test and assessment procedures.
A legform impactor with biofidelic characteristics (FlexPLI) which is being developed by the Japanese Automobile Research Institute (JARI) is being considered as a test tool for legislation within a proposed Global Technical Regulation on pedestrian protection (UNECE, 2006) and therefore being evaluated by the Technical Evaluation Group (TEG) of GRSP. In previous built levels it already showed good test results on real cars as well as under idealised test conditions but also revealed further need for improvement. A research study at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) deals with the question on how leg injury risks of modern car fronts can be revealed, reflected and assessed by the FlexPLI and how the impactor can be used and implemented as a legislative instrument for the type approval of cars according to current and future legislations on pedestrian protection. The latest impactor built level (GTα ) is being evaluated by a general review and assessment of the certification procedure, the knee joint biofidelity and the currently proposed injury criteria. Furthermore, the usability, robustness and durability as a test tool for legislation is examined and an assessment of leg injuries is made by a series of tests with the FlexPLI on real cars with modern car front shapes as well as under idealised test conditions. Finally, a comparison is made between the FlexPLI and the current european legislation tool, the legform impactor according to EEVC WG 17.
During the past five years, a Euro NCAP technical working group on pedestrian safety has been working on improving test and assessment procedures for enhanced passive pedestrian safety. After harmonizing the tools and procedures as much as possible with legislation, the work was mainly focused on the development of grid procedures for the pedestrian body regions head, upper leg with pelvis and lower leg with knee. Furthermore, the test parameters for the head and the upper leg were revised, a new lower legform impactor was introduced and the injury thresholds were adjusted or, where necessary, the injury criteria were changed. Finally, the assessment limits and colour scheme were refined, widening the range and adding two more colours in order to provide a more detailed description of the pedestrian safety performance. By abstaining from an assessment based on a worst point selection philosophy, the improved test point determination procedures that were introduced during the years 2013 and 2014 give a more homogeneous, high resolution picture of the pedestrian safety performance of the vehicle frontends. By using a uniform grid for each test zone approximately 200 test points, evenly distributed within each area, can now be assessed per vehicle. The introduction of the flexible pedestrian legform impactor in 2014 enables a more realistic injury prediction of the knee and the tibia using a biofidelic test tool. With the new upper legform test that has been launched in 2015 the assessment in that area is now focusing on the injured body region instead of the injury causing vehicle part and thus is aligned with the approach in the remaining body regions head and lower leg. At the same time, a monitoring test with the headform impactor against the bonnet leading edge is closing the possible gap between the test areas to identify injury causing vehicle parts that moved out of focus due to the introduction of the new upper legform test. The paper describes the new test and assessment procedures with their underlying philosophy and gives an outlook in terms of open issues, specifying the needs for further improvement in the future. In parallel to the work of the pedestrian subgroup, a Euro NCAP working group on heavy vehicles introduced a set of protocol changes in 2011 that were related to the assessment of M1 vehicles derived from commercial vehicles, with a gross vehicle weight between 2.5 and 3.5 tons and 8 or 9 seats. The paper also investigates the applicability of the new pedestrian test and assessment procedures to heavy vehicles.
A flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) with biofidelic characteristics is aimed to be implemented within global legislation on pedestrian protection. Therefore, it is being evaluated by a technical evaluation group (Flex-TEG) of GRSP with respect to its biofidelity, robustness, durability, usability and protection level (Zander, 2008). Previous studies at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) and other laboratories already showed good progress concerning the general development, but also the need for further improvement and further research in various areas. An overview is provided of the different levels of development and all kinds of evaluation activities of the Flex-TEG, starting with the Polar II full scale pedestrian dummy as its origin and ending up with the latest legform impactor built level GTR that is expected to be finalized by the end of the year 2009. Using the latest built levels as a basis, gaps are revealed that should be closed by future developments, like the usage of an upper body mass (UBM), the validation of the femur loads, injury risk functions for the cruciate knee ligaments and an appropriate certification method. A recent study on an additional upper body mass being applied for the first time to the Flex-GT is used as means of validation of recently proposed modified impact conditions. Therefore, two test series on a modern vehicle front using an impactor with and without upper body mass are compared. A test series with the Flex-GTR will be used to study both the comparability of the impact behavior of the GT and GTR built level as well as the consistency of test results. Recommendations for implementation within legislation on pedestrian protection are made.
A flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) has been evaluated by a Technical Evaluation Group (Flex-TEG) of the Working Party on Passive Safety (GRSP) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE). It will be implemented within phase 2 of the global technical regulation (GTR 9) as well as within a new ECE regulation on pedestrian safety as a test tool for the assessment of lower extremity injuries in lateral vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents (UN-ECE 2010-1, 2010-2 and 2010-3). Due to its biofidelic properties in the knee and tibia section, the FlexPLI is found to having an improved knee and tibia injury assessment ability when being compared to the current legislative test tool, the lower legform impactor developed by the Pedestrian Safety Working Group of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC WG 17). However, due to a lack of biofidelity in terms of kinematics and loadings in the femur part of the FlexPLI, an appropriate assessment of femur injuries is still outstanding. The study described in this paper is aimed to close this gap. Impactor tests with the FlexPLI at different impact heights on three vehicle frontends with Sedan, SUV and FFV shape are performed and compared to tests with a modified FlexPLI with upper body mass. Full scale validation tests using a modified crash test dummy with attached FlexPLI that are carried out for the first time prove the more humanlike responses of the femur section with applied upper body mass. Apart from that they also show that the impact conditions described in the current technical provisions for tests with the FlexPLI don"t necessarily compensate the missing torso mass in terms of knee and tibia loadings either. Therefore it can be concluded that an applied upper body mass will contribute to a more biofidelic overall behavior of the legform and subsequently an improved injury assessment ability of all lower extremity injuries addressed by the FlexPLI. Nevertheless, the validity of the original as well as the modified legform for tests against vehicles with extraordinary high bumpers as well as flat front vehicles still needs to be evaluated in detail. A first clue is given by the application of an additional accelerometer to the legform.
Per definition, SAE Level 2 (L2) Systems perform both the lateral and longitudinal vehicle motion control with the expectation that the driver completes the Object and Event Detection and Response (OEDR). Since every system performs also parts of the OEDR itself and this amount of OEDR also varies between different L2 systems depending on the intended system design, it cannot be taken for granted that drivers automatically understand their roles and responsibilities in interaction with the system. Especially highly reliable L2 systems performing a greater amount of OEDR while at the same time requiring only little driver input over time can make it difficult for drivers to correctly identify their role and responsibility. Until now, neither application-oriented assessment methods nor design guidelines for OEDR related system design features taking safety of human-machine-interaction into account are available. The objective is therefore to deliver a standardized tool for the assessment of human-machine-interaction-related safety of vehicles with L2 systems currently available on the market. To evaluate the impact of different system design aspects on safety of human-machine-interaction and also to be able to differentiate between system designs, a holistic, standardized and application-oriented assessment procedure is proposed. The novel tablet-based assessment tool focuses not only on available standards and guidelines but measures also concrete user behaviour and user understanding in interaction with the L2 systems. The aim is to gain further insights which cannot be measured directly by simple checklist instruments. For preparation, based on international standards, literature reviews and expert consultations, a first checklistbased expert-evaluation for currently available vehicles with L2 systems was developed. These assessments are focusing on different sources of user information (e.g. user manual), human-machine-interface design as well as the prevention of unintended use by different driver monitoring techniques. The checklist-tool was developed in cooperation with experts of different EuroNCAP test laboratories and validated in a common expert workshop to gain high level of standardization and agreement. However, to assess safety of human-machine-interaction holistically beyond these rather explicit forms of information design criteria, also implicit forms of drivervehicle-communication via vehicle dynamics, functional behavior or reliability play an important role and should be taken into account. Therefore, the main and novel methodological aim is to consider also interaction related processes regarding user´s understanding of roles and responsibilities when applying automated driving functions as well as user´s awareness of automation modes or traffic situations in the modular tablet-based assessment tool.
The use of proper child restraint systems (CRS) is mandatory for children travelling in cars in most countries of the world. The analysis of the quantity of restrained children shows that more than 90% of the children in Germany are restrained. Looking at the quality of the protection, a large discrepancy between restrained and well protected children can be seen. Two out of three children in Germany are not properly restrained. In addition, considerable difference exists with respect to the technical performance of CRS. For that reason investigations and optimisations on two different topics are necessary: The technical improvement of CRS and the ease of use of CRS. Consideration of the knowledge gained by the comparison of different CRS in crash tests would lead to some improvements of the CRS. But improvement of child safety is not only a technical issue. People should use CRS in the correct way. Misuse and incorrect handling could lead to less safety than correct usage of a poor CRS. For that reason new technical issues are necessary to improve the child safety AND the ease of use. Only the combination of both parts can significantly increase child safety. For the assessment of the safety level of common CRS, frontal and lateral sled tests simulating different severity levels were conducted comparing pairs of CRS which were felt to be good and CRS which were felt to be poor. The safety of some CRS is currently at a high level. All well known products were not damaged in the performed tests. The performance of non-branded CRS was mostly worse than that of the well known products. Although the branded child restraint systems already show a high safety level it is still possible to further improve their technical performance as demonstrated with a baby shell and a harness type CRS.
At the 2005 ESV conference, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) side impact working group proposed a 4 part draft test procedure, to form the basis of harmonisation of regulation world-wide and to help advances in car occupant protection. This paper presents the work performed by a European Commission 6th framework project, called APROSYS, an further development and evaluation of the proposed procedure from a European perspective. The 4 parts of the proposed procedure are: - A Mobile Deformable Barrier test; - An oblique Pole side impact test; - Interior headform tests; - Side Out of Position (OOP) tests. Full scale test and modelling work to develop the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) further is described, resulting in a recommendation to revise the barrier face to include a bumper beam element. An evaluation of oblique and perpendicular pole tests was made from tests and numerical simulations using ES-2 and WorldSID 50th percentile dummies. It was concluded that an oblique pole test is feasible but that a perpendicular test would be preferable for Europe. The interior headform test protocol was evaluated to assess its repeatability and reproducibility and to solve issues such as the head impact angle and limitation zones. Recommendations for updates to the test protocol are made. Out-of-position (OOP) tests applicable for the European situation were performed, which included additional tests with Child Restraint Systems (CRS) which use is mandatory in Europe. It was concluded that the proposed IHRA OOP tests do cover the worst case situations, but the current test protocol is not ready for regulatory use.
The objective of this deliverable is to describe the expected influence of the candidate test procedures developed in FIMCAR for frontal impact on other impact types. The other impact types of primary interest are front-to-side impacts, collisions with road restraint systems (e.g. guardrails), and heavy goods vehicle impacts. These collision types were chosen as they involve structures that can be adapted to improve safety. Collisions with vulnerable road users (VRU) were not explicitly investigated in FIMCAR. It is expected that the vehicle structures of interest in FIMCAR can be designed into a VRU friendly shell. Information used for this deliverable comes from simulations and car-to-car crash tests conducted in FIMCAR or review of previous research. Three test configurations (full width, offset, and moving deformable barriers) were the input to the FIMCAR selection process. There are three different types of offset tests and two different full width tests. During the project test procedures could be divided into three groups that provide different influences or outcomes on vehicle designs: 1. The ODB barrier provides a method to assess part of the vehicles energy absorption capabilities and compartment test in one test. 2. The FWRB and FWDB have similar capabilities to control structural alignment, further assess energy absorption capabilities, and promote the improvements in the occupant restraint system for high deceleration impacts. 3. The PDB and MPDB can be used to promote better load spreading in the vehicle structures, in addition to assessing energy absorption and occupant compartment strength in an offset configuration. The consortium selected the ODB and FWDB as the two best candidates for short term application in international rulemaking. The review of how all candidates would affect vehicle performance in other impacts (beside front-to-front vehicle or frontal impacts with fixed obstacles) however is reported in this deliverable to support the benefit analysis reported in FIMCAR. The grouping presented above is used to discuss all five test candidates using similarities between certain tests and thereby simplify the discussion.
Accident analysis
(2014)
For the assessment of vehicle safety in frontal collisions compatibility (which consists of self and partner protection) between opponents is crucial. Although compatibility has been analysed worldwide for years, no final assessment approach has been defined to date. Taking into account the European Enhanced Vehicle safety Committee (EEVC) compatibility and frontal impact working group (WG15) and the EC funded FP5 VC-COMPAT project activities, two test approaches have been identified as the most promising candidates for the assessment of compatibility. Both are composed of an off-set and a full overlap test procedure. In addition another procedure (a test with a moving deformable barrier) is getting more attention in today- research programmes. The overall objective of the FIMCAR project is to complete the development of the candidate test procedures and propose a set of test procedures suitable for regulatory application to assess and control a vehicle- frontal impact and compatibility crash safety. In addition an associated cost benefit analysis should be performed. The specific objectives of the work reported in this deliverable were: - Determine if previously identified compatibility issues are still relevant in current vehicle fleet: Structural interaction, Frontal force matching, Compartment strength in particular for light cars. - Determine nature of injuries and injury mechanisms: Body regions injured o Injury mechanism: Contact with intrusion, Contact, Deceleration / restraint induced. The main data sources for this report were the CCIS and Stats 19 databases from Great Britain and the GIDAS database from Germany. The different sampling and reporting schemes for the detailed databases (CCIS & GIDAS) sometimes do not allow for direct comparisons of the results. However the databases are complementary " CCIS captures more severe collisions highlighting structure and injury issues while GIDAS provides detailed data for a broader range of crash severities. The following results represent the critical points for further development of test procedures in FIMCAR.
The PDB, BASt and Opel conducted two test series to evaluate possible effects on the results obtained using the EEVC WG17 Lower Legform Impactor as a test tool for the assessment of pedestrian safety. The reproducibility and repeatability of the test results were assessed using six legform impactors while keeping the test parameters constant. In the second series one impactor was used and the test parameters were varied to assess the effects on the readings of the legform. The test parameters were velocity, temperature, relative humidity, the point of first contact regarding the deviation in z-direction and the deviations of the pitch, roll and yaw angle. The tests were performed using an inverse setup, i.e. the legform was hit by a guided linear impactor equipped with a honeycomb deformation element. This setup was chosen to be able to vary each single parameter while avoiding variations of the other test parameters at the same time. The test parameters were varied stronger than allowed in regulatory use in order to determine possible dependencies between the parameters and the readings which were acceleration, bending angle and shear displacement.
This paper presents findings of a laboratory experiment which aimed at evaluating the sensitivity and intrusiveness of Tactile Detection Response Task (TDRT) methodology. Various single-task, dual-task and triple-task scenarios were compared. The task scenarios included a surrogate of driving (tracking task) and different secondary tasks (N-back, surrogate reference task (SuRT)). The results suggest that the TDRT is sensitive to load levels of secondary tasks which primarily demand for cognitive resources (N-back). Sensitivity to variations of visual"manual load could not be shown (SuRT). TDRT seems also to be able to differentiate between modes of primary task which varies in terms of cognitive load (visual against auditory tracking task). Results indicated intrusiveness of TDRT on primary task performance and secondary task performance depending on the type of underlying task scenario. As a conclusion, TDRT can be recommended as a method to assess attentional effects of cognitive load of a secondary task, but should be used with caution for secondary tasks with strong motor demands.
Established in 1997, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) provides consumers with a safety performance assessment for the majority of the most popular cars in Europe. Thanks to its rigorous crash tests, Euro NCAP has rapidly become an important driver safety improvement to new cars. After ten years of rating vehicles, Euro NCAP felt that a change was necessary to stay in tune with rapidly emerging driver assistance and crash avoidance systems and to respond to shifting priorities in road safety. A new overall rating system was introduced that combines the most important aspects of vehicle safety under a single star rating. The overall rating system has allowed Euro NCAP to continue to push for better fitment and higher performance for vehicles sold on the European market. In the coming years, the safety rating is expected to play an important role in the support of the roll-out of highly automated vehicles.
In spite of today's highly sophisticated crash test procedures like the different NCAP programs running world-wide, bad real world crash performance of cars is still an issue. There are crash situations which are not sufficiently represented by actual test configurations. This is especially true for car to car, as well as for car to object impacts. The paper describes reasons for this bad performance. The reasons are in principal bad structural interaction between the car and its impact partners (geometric incompatibility), unadjusted front end stiffness (stiffness incompatibility) and collapse of passenger compartments. To show the efficiency of improving cars' structural behaviour in accidents with different impact partners an accident data analysis has been taken out by members of European Project VC-COMPAT. Accident data analysis has shown that in Germany between 15,000 and 20,000 of the now severely injured car occupants might get less injured and between 600 and 900 car occupant fatalities might be saved. Similar results arise for the UK.
A means of assessing the passive safety of automobiles is a desirable instrument for legislative bodies, the automobile industry, and the consumer. As opposed to the dominating motor vehicle assessment criteria, such as engine power, spaciousness, aerodynamics and consumption, there are no clear and generally accepted criteria for assessing the passive safety of cars. The proposed method of assessment combines the results of experimental safety tests, carried out according to existing legally prescribed or currently discussed testing conditions, and a biomechanical validation of the loading values determined in the test. This evaluation is carried out with the aid of risk functions which are specified for individual parts of the body by correlating the results of accident analysis with those obtained by computer simulation. The degree of conformance to the respective protection criterion thus deduced is then weighted with factors which take into account the frequency of occurrence and the severity of the accident on the basis of resulting costs. Each of the test series includes at least two frontal and one lateral crash test against a deformable barrier. The computer-aided analysis and evaluation of the simulation results enables a vehicle-specific overall safety index as well as partial and individual safety values to be determined and plotted graphically. The passive safety provided by the respective vehicle under test can be defined for specific seating positions, special types of accident, or for individual endangered parts of the body.
It is well known that most accidents with pedestrians are caused by the driver not being alert or misinterpreting the situation. For that reason advanced forward looking safety systems have a high potential to improve safety for this group of vulnerable road users. Active pedestrian protection systems combine reduction of impact speed by driver warning and/or autonomous braking with deployment of protective devices shortly before the imminent impact. According to the Euro NCAP roadmap the Autonomous Emergency Braking system tests for Pedestrians Protection will be set in force from 2016 onwards. Various projects and organisations in Europe are developing performance tests and assessment procedures as accompanying measures to the Euro NCAP initiative. To provide synthesised input to Euro NCAP so-called Harmonisation Platforms (HP-) have been established. Their main goal is to foster exchange of information on key subjects, thereby generating a clear overview of similarities and differences on the approaches chosen and, on that basis, recommend on future test procedures. In this paper activities of the Harmonisation Platform 2 on the development of Test Equipment are presented. For the testing targets that mimic humans different sensing technologies are required. A first set of specifications for pedestrian targets and the propulsion systems as collected by Harmonisation Platform 2 are presented together with a first evaluation for a number of available tools.
The off-set assessment procedure potentially contributes to the FIMCAR objectives to maintain the compartment strength and to assess load spreading in frontal collisions. Furthermore it provides the opportunity to assess the restraint system performance with different pulses if combined with a full-width assessment procedure in the frontal assessment approach. Originally it was expected that the PDB assessment procedure would be selected for the FIMCAR assessment approach. However, it was not possible to deliver a compatibility metric in time so that the current off-set procedure (ODB as used in UNECE R94) with some minor modifications was proposed for the FIMCAR Assessment Approach. Nevertheless the potential to assess load spreading, which appears not to be possible with any other assessed frontal impact assessment procedure was considered to be still high. Therefore the development work for the PDB assessment procedure did not stop with the decision not to select the PDB procedure. As a result of the decisions to use the current ODB and to further develop the PDB procedure, both are covered within this deliverable. The deliverable describes the off-set test procedure that will be recommended by FIMCAR consortium, this corresponds to the ODB test as it is specified in UN-ECE Regulation 94 (R94), i.e. EEVC deformable element with 40% overlap at a test speed of 56 km/h. In addition to the current R94 requirements, FIMCAR will recommend to introduce some structural requirements which will guarantee sufficiently strong occupant compartments by enforcing the stability of the forward occupant cell. With respect to the PDB assessment procedure a new metric, Digital Derivative in Y direction - DDY, was developed, described, analysed, and compared with other metrics. The DDY metric analyses the deformation gradients laterally across the PDB face. The more even the deformation, the lower the DDY values and the better the metric- result. In order analyse the different metrics, analysis of the existing PDB test results and the results of the performed simulation studies was performed. In addition, an assessment of artificial deformation profiles with the metrics took place. This analysis shows that there are still issues with the DDY metric but it appears that it is possible to solve them with future optimisations. For example the current metric assesses only the area within 60% of the half vehicle width. For vehicles that have the longitudinals further outboard, the metric is not effective. In addition to the metric development, practical issues of the PDB tests such as the definition of a scan procedure for the analysis of the deformation pattern including the validation of the scanning procedure by the analysis of 3 different scans at different locations of the same barrier were addressed. Furthermore the repeatability and reproducibility of the PDB was analysed. The barrier deformation readings seem to be sensitive with respect to the impact accuracy. In total, the deliverable is meant to define the FIMCAR off-set assessment procedure and to be a starting point for further development of the PDB assessment procedure.
The European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) Working Group 13 for Side Impact Protection has been developing an Interior Headform Test Procedure to complement the full-scale Side Impact Test Procedure for Europe and for the proposed IHRA test procedures. In real world accidents interior head contacts with severe head injuries still occur, which are not always observed in standard side impact tests with dummies. Thus a means is needed to encourage further progress in head protection. At the 2003 ESV-Conference EEVC Working Group 13 reported the results on Interior Headform Testing. Further research has been performed since and the test procedure has been improved. This paper gives an overview of its latest status. The paper presents new aspects which are included in the latest test procedure and the research work leading to these enhancements. One topic of improvement is the definition of the Free Motion Headform (FMH) impactor alignment procedure to provide guidelines to minimize excessive headform chin contact and to minimize potential variability. Research activities have also been carried out on the definition of reasonable approach head angles to avoid unrealistic test conditions. Further considerations have been given to the evaluation of head airbags, their potential benefits and a means of ensuring protection for occupants regardless of seating position and sitting height. The paper presents the research activities that have been made since the last ESV Conference in 2003 and the final proposal of the EEVC Headform Test Procedure.
For the assessment of vehicle safety in frontal collisions, the crash compatibility between the colliding vehicles is crucial. Compatibility compromises both the self protection and the partner protection properties of vehicles. For the accident data analysis, the CCIS (GB) and GIDAS (DE) in-depth data bases were used. Selection criteria were frontal car accidents with car in compliance with ECE R94. For this study belted adult occupants in the front seats sustaining MAIS 2+ injuries were studied. Following this analysis FIMCAR concluded that the following compatibility issues are relevant: - Poor structural interaction (especially low overlap and over/underriding) - Compartment strength - Frontal force mismatch with lower priority than poor structural interaction In addition injuries arising from the acceleration loading of the occupant are present in a significant portion of frontal crashes. Based on the findings of the accident analysis the aims that shall be addressed by the proposed assessment approach were defined and priorities were allocated to them. The aims and priorities shall help to decide on suitable test procedures and appropriate metrics. In general it is anticipated that a full overlap and off-set test procedure is the most appropriate set of tests to assess a vehicle- frontal impact self and partner protection.
The European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee wants to promote the use of more biofidelic child dummies and biomechanical based tolerance limits in regulatory and consumer testing. This study has investigated the feasibility and potential impact of Q-dummies and new injury criteria for child restraint system assessment in frontal impact. European accident statistics have been reviewed for all ECE-R44 CRS groups. For frontal impact, injury measures are recommended for the head, neck, chest and abdomen. Priority of body segment protection depends on the ECE-R44 group. The Q-dummy family is able to reflect these injuries, because of its biofidelity performance and measurement capabilities for these body segments. Currently, the Q0, Q1, Q1.5, Q3 and Q6 are available representing children of 0, 1, 1.5, 3 and 6 years old. These Q-dummies cover almost all dummy weight groups as defined in ECE-R44. Q10, representing a 10 year-old child, is under development. New child dummy injury criteria are under discussion in EEVC WG12. Therefore, the ECE-R44 criteria are assessed by comparing the existing P-dummies and new Q-dummies in ECE-R44 frontal impact sled tests. In total 300 tests covering 30 CRSs of almost all existing child seat categories are performed by 11 European organizations. From this benchmark study, it is concluded that the performance of the Q-dummy family is good with respect to repeatability of the measurement signals and the durability of the dummies. Applying ECE-R44 criteria, the first impression is that results for P- and Q-dummy are similar. For child seat evaluation the potential merits of the Q-dummy family lie in the extra measurement possibilities of these dummies and in the more biofidelic response.
Since integrated safety systems combine active and passive safety elements in one safety system, it is necessary to define new procedures to evaluate vehicle safety from the overall system point of view. The main goal of the ASSESS project is to develop harmonized and standardized assessment procedures for collision mitigation and avoidance systems. Methods and Data Sources: In ASSESS, procedures are developed for: driver behaviour evaluation, pre-crash system performance evaluation, crash performance evaluation, socio-economic assessment. This paper will concentrate on the activities related to the crash evaluation. The objective is to perform simulations, sled tests and crash tests in order tounderstand the influence of the activation of the pre-crash systems on the occupants" injuries during the crash phase. When a traffic accident is unavoidable, pre-crash systems work on various safety devices in order to improve the vehicle occupants" protection. Braking assistance and adaptive restraint systems are the main pre-crash systems whose effect on the occupants" protection will be described in this paper. Results: The results will be a description of the effect of the activation of the pre-crash systems on the crash phase. Additionally, a set of recommendations for future methodology developments will be delivered. Furthermore, a first approach to the study of the effect of the pre-crash systems activation on the occupants" protection when the impact is unavoidable will be presented. This effect will be quantified using the biomechanical values obtained from the simulation and testing activities and their related injury risks. Simulation and testing activities will consider the following scenarios: - No activation of any pre-crash system, - Activation of one or a combination of several pre-crash systems. In this way, differences in the results obtained from different scenarios will show the effect of each pre-crash system separately during the crash phase. Discussion and Limitations: The set of activities developed in this research project is limited by the fact that with the given resources only a limited number of vehicle models could be investigated. In addition, there are also limitations related to the injury risk curves and the passive safety tools currently on the market. Conclusion and Relevance to session submitted: The paper will present a complete analysis of the effect of pre-crash systems during the crash phase when the impact is unavoidable. Details, limitations and first application experience based on a few examples will be discussed. Currently, there is not any regulation, assessment program, or other similar official procedure able to assess pre-crash systems during the crash phase. This project comprises phases of traffic accidents which have been historically analysed separately, and aims to evaluate them taking into account their interrelationship. ASSESS is one of the first European projects which deals in depth with the concept of integrated safety, defining methodologies to analyse vehicle safety from a global point of view.
Automated driving will provide many kinds of benefits - some direct and some indirect. The benefits originate at the individual level, from changes in the behaviour of drivers and travellers with regard to driving and mobility, ending up with benefits at the social level via changes in the whole transport system and society, where many of the current planning and operations paradigms are likely to be transformed by automated driving. There may also be disbenefits, particularly at a social level, for example in intensity of travel which could result in additional congestion and increased use of natural resources. There may also be unintended consequences. For example, we do not know the impacts on public transport: driverless vehicles could provide a means to a lower cost service provision, but the availability of automated cars could lead to more car travel at the expense of collective transport.
As set out in the Terms of Reference, the objective of European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) Working Group (WG) 15 Car Crash Compatibility and Frontal Impact is to develop a test procedure(s) with associated performance criteria for car frontal impact compatibility. This work should lead to improved car to car frontal compatibility and self protection without decreasing the safety in other impact configuration such as impacts with car sides, trucks, and pedestrians. Since 2003, EEVC WG 15 served as a steering group for the car-to-car activities in the "Improvement of Vehicle Crash Compatibility through the development of Crash Test Procedures" (VC-COMPAT) project that was finalised at the end of 2006 and partly funded by the European Commission. This paper presents the research work carried out in the VC-COMPAT project and the results of its assessment by EEVC WG 15. Other additional work presented by the UK and French governments and industry " in particular the European industry - was taken into consideration. It also identifies current issues with candidate testing approaches. The candidate test approaches are: - an offset barrier test with the progressive deformable barrier (PDB) face in combination with a full width rigid barrier test - a full width wall test with a deformable aluminium honeycomb face and a high resolution load cell wall supplemented by the forces measured in the offset deformable barrier (ODB) test with the current EEVC barrier. These candidate test approaches must assess the structural interaction and give information of frontal force levels and compartment strength for passenger vehicles. Further, this paper presents the planned route map of EEVC WG 15 for the evaluation of the proposed test procedures and assessment criteria.