91 Fahrzeugkonstruktion
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.
A reduction of around 48% of all road fatalities was achieved in Europe in the past years including a reduced number of fatalities with an older age. However, among all road fatalities, the proportion of elderly is steadily increasing. In an ageing society, the European (Horizon2020) project SENIORS aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users, who have different transportation habits compared to other age groups. To increase their level of safe mobility by determining appropriate requirements for vehicle safety systems, the characteristics of current road traffic collisions involving the elderly and the injuries that they sustain need to be understood in detail. Hereby, the paper focuses on their traffic participation as pedestrian, cyclist or passenger car occupant. Following a literature review, several national and international crash databases and hospital statistics have been analysed to determine the body regions most frequently and severely injured, specific injuries sustained and types of crashes involved, always comparing older road users (65 years and more) with mid-aged road users (25-64 years). The most important crash scenarios were highlighted. The data sources included European statistics from CARE, data on national level from Germany, Sweden, Italy, United Kingdom and Spain as well as in-depth crash information from GIDAS (Germany), RAIDS (UK), CIREN and NASS-CDS (US). In addition, familiar hospital data from Germany (TraumaRegister DGU-®), Italy (Italian Register of Acute Traumas) and UK hospital statistics (TARN) were included in the study to gain further insight into specific injury patterns. Comprehensive data analyses were performed showing injury patterns of older road users in crashes. When comparing with mid-aged road users, all databases showed that the thorax body region is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS 2 or AIS 3+, whereas the body regions lower extremities, head and thorax need to be considered for the older pedestrians and cyclists. Besides these comparisons, the most frequent and severe top 5 injuries were highlighted per road user group. Further, the most important crash configurations were identified and injury risk functions are provided per age group and road user group. Although several databases have been analysed, the picture on the road safety situation of older road users in Europe was not complete, as only Western European data was available. The linkage between crash data and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.
Supported by field accident data and monitoring results of European Regulation (EC) No. 78/2009, recent plans of the European Commission regarding a way forward to improve passive safety of vulnerable road users include, amongst other things, an extension of the head test area. The inclusion of passive cyclist safety is also being considered by Euro NCAP. Although passenger car to cyclist collisions are often severe and have a significant share within the accident statistics, cyclists are neither considered sufficiently in the legislative nor in the consumer ratings tests. Therefore, a test procedure to assess the protection potential of vehicle fronts in a collision with cyclists has been developed within a current research project. For this purpose, the existing pedestrian head impact test procedures were modified in order to include boundary conditions relevant for cyclists as the second big group of vulnerable road users. Based on an in-depth analysis of passenger car to cyclist accidents in Germany the three most representative accident constellations have been initially defined. The development of the test procedure itself was based on corresponding simulations with representative vehicle and bicycle models. In addition to different cyclist heights, reaching from a 6-year-old child to a 95%-male, also four pedal positions were considered. By reconstruction of a real accident the defined simulation parameters could be validated in advance. The conducted accident kinematics analysis shows for a large portion of the constellations an increased head impact area, which can reach beyond the roof leading edge, as well as high average values for head impact velocity and angle. Based on the simulation data obtained for the different vehicle models, cyclist-specific test parameters for impactor tests have been derived, which have been further examined in the course of head and leg impact tests. In order to study the cyclist accident kinematics under real test conditions, different full scale tests with a Polar-II dummy positioned on a bicycle have been conducted. Overall, the tests showed a good correlation with the simulations and support the defined boundary test conditions. Typical accident scenarios and simulations reveal higher head impact locations, angles and velocities. An extended head impact area with modified test parameters will contribute to an improved protection of vulnerable road users including cyclists. However, due to significantly differing impact kinematics and postures between the lower extremities of pedestrians and cyclists, these injuries cannot be addressed by the means of current test tools such as the flexible pedestrian legform impactor FlexPLI. Based on the findings obtained within the project as well as the existing pedestrian protection requirements a cyclist protection test procedure for use in legislation and consumer test programmes has been developed, whose requirements have been transferred into a corresponding test specification. This specification provides common head test boundary conditions for pedestrians and cyclists, whereby the existing requirements are modified and two parallel test procedures are avoided.
Sicherheitsgurte sind als wirksamer Schutz für Pkw-Insassen bei Verkehrsunfällen weltweit anerkannt; trotzdem werden sie in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland von den Autofahrern noch nicht im wünschenswerten Maße benutzt, obwohl Sicherheitsgurte in ihren Fahrzeugen eingebaut sind. Von dieser Situation ausgehend behandelt die vorliegende Studie sowohl die wirtschaftlichen, rechtlichen und technischen Aspekte, einschließlich alternativer Rückhaltesysteme, als auch die Frage nach der Wirksamkeit des Sicherheitsgurtes. Die Auswertung der internationalen Literatur und die Erörterung der anstehenden Probleme mit Experten führten zu folgenden Feststellungen: - Der Dreipunktgurt kann sowohl hinsichtlich seines Bedienungs- und Tragekomforts als auch im Hinblick auf die beabsichtigte Schutzwirkung im Detail verbessert werden. - Derzeit gibt es keine serienreifen Alternativen zum Gurtsystem. - Das Risiko von gurtbedingten Verletzungsverschlimmerungen ist gering, so dass ihm keine ausschlaggebende Bedeutung beigemessen werden kann. - Ausländische Erfahrungen zeigen, dass durch die Einführung eines Bußgeldes die Kraftfahrer in ihrer überwiegenden Mehrheit die Anlegepflicht befolgen. - Würden in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland alle Frontinsassen von Pkw den Gurt stets anlegen, so könnte der derzeitige Sicherheitsgewinn praktisch verdoppelt werden.
Injury probability functions for pedestrians and bicyclists based on real-world accident data
(2017)
The paper is focusing on the modelling of injury severity probabilities, often called as Injury Risk Functions (IRF). These are mathematical functions describing the probability for a defined population and for possible explanatory factors (variables) to sustain a certain injury severity. Injury risk functions are becoming more and more important as basis for the assessment of automotive safety systems. They contribute to the understanding of injury mechanisms, (prospective) evaluation of safety systems and definition of protection criteria or are used within regulation and/or consumer ratings. In all cases, knowledge about the correlation between mechanical behavior and injury severity is needed. IRFs are often based on biomechanical data. This paper is focusing on the derivation of injury probability models from real world accident data of the GIDAS database (German In-depth Accident Study). In contrast to most academic terms there is no explicit term definition or definition of creation processes existing for injury probability models based on empirical data. Different approaches are existing for such kind of models in the field of accident research. There is a need for harmonization in terms of the used methods and data as well as the handling with the existing challenges. These are preparation of the dataset, model assumptions, censored/unknown data, evaluation of model accuracy, definition of dependent and independent variable, and others. In the presented study, several empirical, statistical and phenomenological approaches were analyzed regarding their advantages and disadvantages and also their applicability. Furthermore, the identification of appropriate prediction parameters for the injury severity of pedestrians has been considered. Due to its main effect on injuries of pedestrians and bicyclists, the importance of the secondary impact has also been analyzed. Finally, the model accuracy, evaluated by several criteria, is the rating factor that gives the quality and reliability for application of the resulting models. After the investigation and evaluation of statistical approaches one method was chosen and appropriate prediction variables were examined. Finally, all findings were summarized and injury risk functions for pedestrians in real world accidents were created. Additionally, the paper gives instructions for the interpretation and usage of such functions. The presented results include IRFs for several injury severity levels and age groups. The presented models are based on a high amount of real world accidents and describe very well the injury severity probability of pedestrians and bicyclists in frontal collisions with current vehicles. The functions can serve as basis for the evaluation of effectiveness of systems like Pedestrian-AEB or Bicycle-AEB.
In most of developed countries, the progress made in passive safety during the last three decades allowed to drastically reduce the number of killed and severely injured especially for occupants of passenger cars. This reduction is mainly observed for frontal impacts for which the AIS3+ injuries has been reduced about 52% for drivers and 38% for front passengers. The stiffening of the cars' structure coupled with the generalization of airbags and the improvement of the seatbelt restraint (load limiter, pretension, etc.) allowed to protect vital body regions such as head, neck and thorax. However, the abdomen did not take advantage with so much success of this progress. The objective of this study is to draw up an inventory on the abdominal injuries of the belted car occupants involved in frontal impact, to present adapted counter-measures and to assess their potential effectiveness. In the first part the stakes corresponding to the abdominal injuries will be defined according to types of impact, seat location, occupants' age and type of injured organs. Then, we shall focus on the abdominal injury risk curves for adults involved in frontal impact and on the comparisons of the average risks according to the seat location. In the second part we will list counter-measures and we shall calculate their effectiveness. The method of case control will be used in order to estimate odds ratio, comparing two samples, given by occupants having or not having the studied safety system. For this study, two type of data sources are used: national road injured accident census and retrospective in-depth accident data collection. Abdominal injuries are mainly observed in frontal impact (52%). Fatal or severe abdominal occupant- injuries are observed at least in 27% of cases, ranking this body region as the most injured just after the thorax (51%). In spite of a twice lower occupation rate in the back seats compared to the front seats, the number of persons sustaining abdominal injuries at the rear place is higher than in the front place. In recent cars, the risk of having a serious or fatal abdominal injury in a frontal impact is 1.6% for the driver, 3.6% for the front passenger and 6.3% for the rear occupants. The most frequently hurt organs are the small intestine (17%), the spleen (16%) and the liver (13%). The most common countermeasures have a good efficiency in the reduction of the abdominal injuries for the adults: the stiffness of the structure of the seats allows decreasing the abdominal injury risk from 54% (driver) to 60% (front occupant), the seatbelt pretensioners decrease also this risk from 90% (driver) to 83% (front passenger).
The incidence of side impacts was investigated from GIDAS data. Both vehicle-fixed object and vehicle-vehicle collisions were analysed as these are enclosed within the consumer testing program. Vehicle-fixed object collisions were stratified according to ESC availability. Results indicated that vehicles equipped with ESC rarely have pure-lateral impacts. An increase in oblique collisions was seen for the vehicles with ESC whereby most vehicle were driving in left curves. The analysis of vehicle-vehicle collisions developed injury risk curves were developed at the AIS3+ injury severity for the vehicle-vehicle side impacts. Results suggested that greatest injury risk occurred when a Pre Euro NCAP vehicle was struck by a Post Euro-NCAP vehicle. The remaining curves did not show different behaviour, indicating that stiffness increased have been equally combated. This was attributable to the few Post Euro-NCAP vehicles that had a deployed curtain airbag available in the sample. The integration of Euro NCAP testing has shown to improve vehicle crashworthiness for pole collisions, as those vehicles with ESC rarely incur lateral impacts.
Die Beurteilung der technischen und unfallrelevanten Eigenschaften der beiden Scheibenarten zeigt, dass die VSG-Scheibe gegenüber der ESG-Scheibe hinsichtlich der Verletzungs- und Unfallgefahr zwar überwiegend Vorteile aufweist; diese Vorteile sind jedoch vor allem vor dem Hintergrund steigender Gurtanlegequoten nicht als so entscheidend anzusehen, dass daraus die Begründung für ein Verbot der ESG-Scheibe abzuleiten wäre. Diese Feststellung wird insbesondere auch gestützt durch eine Nutzen-Kosten-Betrachtung, die zeigt, dass aus gesamtwirtschaftlicher Sicht bei einem generellen Ersatz der ESG-Scheibe durch die teurere VSG-Scheibe bei günstigen Annahmen der Nutzen unter den Kosten liegen würde.
In 2016 the seventh ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
Die Elektromobilität ist nicht erst seit dem Nationalen Entwicklungsplan Elektromobilität der Bundesregierung, der u.a. als Zielsetzung hat, dass eine Million Elektrofahrzeuge bis 2020 auf deutschen Straßen fahren sollen, ein allgegenwärtiges Thema. Eine zu lösende Aufgabe auf dem Weg zu diesem Ziel ist die Betrachtung der Abhängigkeiten der Systeme Elektrofahrzeug, Ladeverbindungseinheit und Ladesystem, welche bisher weitgehend autonom normiert sind. Um Personen- und Sachschäden beim Laden von Fahrzeugen zu vermeiden, ist es möglicherweise erforderlich, Anforderungen an die Sicherheit dieses Gesamtsystems zu definieren. Zu diesem Zweck beauftragte die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen die SGS-TÜV Saar GmbH, Competence Center Funktionale Sicherheit mit der Durchführung einer Risikoanalyse, mit dem Ziel die Sicherheitsaspekte beim Laden eines Elektrofahrzeuges zu untersuchen. Bisher nicht bzw. unzureichend betrachtete Gefährdungen während des Ladevorganges sollten aufgezeigt werden. Nötige Maßnahmen sollten definiert und punktuell mittels Tests validiert werden, um identifizierte Risiken auf ein ausreichend geringes Maß zu senken. Im Kern wurde untersucht, welche potenziellen Risiken (Das Risiko definiert sich als die Beschreibung eines Ereignisses mit der Möglichkeit negativer Auswirkungen. Das Risiko wird allgemein als Produkt aus Eintrittswahrscheinlichkeit eines Ereignisses und dessen Konsequenz angesehen. (Quelle: Wikipedia)) beim Laden eines Elektrofahrzeugs auftreten. Auf Basis einer Normenrecherche wurde die Frage beantwortet, an welchen Stellen normativer und gesetzlicher Handlungsbedarf besteht. Dazu wurden die nachfolgenden Schwerpunkte erarbeitet: - Darstellung möglicher sicherheitskritischer Bedingungen beim Laden; - Zuordnung der sicherheitskritischen Bedingungen zu den Subsystemen Infrastruktur, Kabel und Fahrzeug; - Definition von Maßnahmen zur Erhöhung der Sicherheit beim Laden; - Aufzeigen der Zuständigkeiten für die Gewährleistung der Sicherheit; - Offenlegung des regelungsseitigen Bedarfs. Im ersten Schritt wurde eine Risikoanalyse durchgeführt, um die potenziellen Risiken beim Laden eines Elektrofahrzeugs aufzuzeigen. Die Risikoanalyse wurde zunächst ohne Berücksichtigung bereits normativ oder gesetzlich festgelegter Schutzmaßnahmen durchgeführt. Anschließend erfolgte eine iterative Weiterführung der Betrachtung der Risiken in zweierlei Hinsicht: a) Berücksichtigung existierender normativer und/ oder gesetzlicher Anforderungen, welche parallel zur Risikoanalyse recherchiert wurden; b) Beschreibung ergänzender technischer und/ oder organisatorischer Maßnahmen, um nicht abgedeckte Risiken weiter zu reduzieren. Danach wurde eine erneute Beurteilung der Risiken vorgenommen, um aufzuzeigen, ob die vorhandenen bzw. neu definierten Maßnahmen in der Lage sind, das identifizierte Risiko in ausreichendem Maß zu reduzieren. Generell zeigte sich im Rahmen der Risikoanalyse eine breite, durch Normen und Richtlinien bzw. gesetzlichen Regelungen, vorhandene Abdeckung der möglichen Risiken. Derzeit nicht abgedeckte Risiken konnten adressiert und wirksame Lösungsmöglichkeiten vorgeschlagen werden. Bei Umsetzung aller aufgezeigten Lösungsansätze bleiben somit keine relevanten Risiken offen. Jedoch zeigt sich auch, dass zu bestimmten Themen dringender Handlungsbedarf besteht. Als Ergebnis ließ sich zu folgenden Punkten ein konkreter Handlungsbedarf ableiten: - Als eines der Hauptrisiken wurde das Laden an einer haushaltsüblichen Schukosteckdose, ohne die Nutzung einer zusätzlichen in der Ladeleitung integrierten Schutzeinrichtung, identifiziert. Bei Ladeleitungen mit Schutzeinrichtung hängt deren Schutzwirkung nicht zuletzt von einer regelmäßigen technischen Überprüfung ab; - Als relevant wurden weiterhin die elektromagnetischen Felder, die von einer Ladeleitung bei hohen Strömen ausgehen (zukünftige Schnellladesysteme), identifiziert, hier sind tiefergehende Untersuchungen erforderlich; Im Sinne der Risikominimierung sollte auch das maximal zulässige Gewicht der Ladegarnitur limitiert sein; - Auch Risiken, die sich durch die Bedienung ergeben, wurden untersucht. Mit entsprechenden Hinweisen im Bedienungshandbuch des Elektrofahrzeuges kann hier bereits einigen möglichen Gefahren begegnet werden. Dies betrifft unter anderem die Handhabung der Ladegarnitur beim Laden im öffentlichen Raum. Aus den ermittelten, noch umzusetzenden Maßnahmen geht hervor, dass der derzeitige Stand der Normung und gesetzlichen Regelungen noch nicht vollkommen ausreichend ist, um alle ermittelten und aufgezeigten Risiken in ausreichendem Maße zu reduzieren. Aus den Ergebnissen der Studie wird aber auch deutlich, dass die Sicherheit nicht alleine von einem Teilsystem alleine, sondern vielmehr durch das sichere Zusammenwirken aller Teile, auch in Kombination mit dem Verhalten der Nutzer und partizipierender Personen, gewährleistet wird.