Sonstige
Every second counts when human lives are at stake. The increasingly safe design of vehicles presents rescuers with a serious challenge. Faced with high-strength steels and body reinforcements, even the most powerful cutters reach their limits. Therefore, incident commanders require information on the technical features and components installed, directly in the vehicle. Several tests have shown that such information helps to save valuable minutes. Therefore, a standardised A4 "rescue sheet" containing information on the location of cabin reinforcements, the tank, the battery, airbags, gas generators, control units etc. " and indicating adequate cutting points must be used throughout Europe. Hopefully, in a few years, the new eCall emergency call system will be in place everywhere in Europe. The system will transmit the relevant vehicle-specific data directly to the rescuers on-site. Until then, we need a simple and effective solution that saves lives.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Informal Group on GTR No. 7 Phase 2 are working to define a build level for the BioRID II rear impact (whiplash) crash test dummy that ensures repeatable and reproducible performance in a test procedure that has been proposed for future legislation. This includes the specification of dummy hardware, as well as the development of comprehensive certification procedures for the dummy. This study evaluated whether the dummy build level and certification procedures deliver the desired level of repeatability and reproducibility. A custom-designed laboratory seat was made using the seat base, back, and head restraint from a production car seat to ensure a representative interface with the dummy. The seat back was reinforced for use in multiple tests and the recliner mechanism was replaced by an external spring-damper mechanism. A total of 65 tests were performed with 6 BioRID IIg dummies using the draft GTR No.7 sled pulse and seating procedure. All dummies were subject to the build, maintenance, and certification procedures defined by the Informal Group. The test condition was highly repeatable, with a very repeatable pulse, a well-controlled seat back response, and minimal observed degradation of seat foams. The results showed qualitatively reasonable repeatability and reproducibility for the upper torso and head accelerations, as well as for T1 Fx and upper neck Fx. However, reproducibility was not acceptable for T1 and upper neck Fz or for T1 and upper neck My. The Informal Group has not selected injury or seat assessment criteria for use with BioRID II, so it is not known whether these channels would be used in the regulation. However, the ramping-up behavior of the dummy showed poor reproducibility, which would be expected to affect the reproducibility of dummy measurements in general. Pelvis and spine characteristics were found to significantly influence the dummy measurements for which poor reproducibility was observed. It was also observed that the primary neck response in these tests was flexion, not extension. This correlates well with recent findings from Japan and the United States showing a correlation between neck flexion and injury in accident replication simulations and postmortem human subjects (PMHS) studies, respectively. The present certification tests may not adequately control front cervical spine bumper characteristics, which are important for neck flexion response. The certification sled test also does not include the pelvis and so cannot be used to control pelvis response and does not substantially load the lumbar bumpers and so does not control these parts of the dummy. The stiffness of all spine bumpers and of the pelvis flesh should be much more tightly controlled. It is recommended that a method for certifying the front cervical bumpers should be developed. Recommendations are also made for tighter tolerance on the input parameters for the existing certification tests.
A total survey of road traffic accidents involving most severely injured, defined as sustaining a polytrauma or severe monotrauma (ISS > 15) or being killed, was conducted over 14 months in a large study region in Germany. Data on injuries, pre-clinical and clinical care, crash circumstances and vehicle damage were obtained both prospectively and retrospectively from trauma centers, dispatch centers, police and fire departments. 149 patients with a polytrauma and eight with a severe monotrauma were recorded altogether. 22 patients died in hospital. Another 76 victims had deceased at the accident scene. In 2008, 49 % of patients treated with life-threatening injuries were car or van occupants, 21 % motorcyclists, 18 % cyclists and 10 % pedestrians. Among fatalities at the scene, vehicle occupants constituted an even larger portion. The number of road users with life-threatening trauma in the region was extrapolated to the German situation. It suggests that 10 % among the "seriously injured" as defined in national accident statistics are surviving accident victims with a polytrauma or severe monotrauma.
Past European collaborative research involving government bodies, vehicle manufacturers and test laboratories has resulted in a prototype barrier face called the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) for use in a new side impact test procedure . This procedure offers a better representation of the current accident situation and, in particular, the barrier concept is a better reflection of front-end stiffness seen in today- passenger car fleet compared to that of the current legislative barrier face. Based on the preliminary performance corridors of the prototype AE-MDB, a refined AE-MDB specification has been developed. A programme of barrier to load cell wall testing was undertaken to complete and standardise the AE-MDB specification. Barrier faces were supplied by the four leading manufacturers to demonstrate that the specification could be met by all. This paper includes background, specification and proof of compliance.
Introduction: Spine injuries pose a considerable risk to life and quality of life. The total number of road deaths in developed countries has markedly decreased, e.g. in Germany from over 20000 in 1970 to less than 4000 in 2010, but little is known how this is reflected in the burden of spine fractures of motor vehicle users. In this study, we aimed to show the actual incidence of spine injuries among drivers and front passengers and elucidate possible dependencies between crash mechanisms and types of injuries.
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).
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.
Detailed anthropometric data of pregnant women have been collected and used in the development of a computational model of the pregnant occupant model "Expecting". The model is complete with a finite element uterus and multi-body fetus, which is a novel feature in the models of this kind. The computational pregnant occupant model has been validated and used to simulate a range of impacts. The strains developed in the utero-placental interface are used as the main criteria for fetus safety. Stress distributions due to inertial loading of the fetus on the utero-placental interface play a role on the strain levels. Inclusion of fetus model is shown to significantly affect the strain levels in the utero-placental interface. This series of studies has led to the design of seatbelt features specifically for the pregnant women to enable them use the seatbelt correctly and comfortably.
From an automotive safety occupant protection standpoint, effective occupant restraint requires a system capable of providing non-injurious occupant ride down of anticipated crash forces. This is not only the case for frontal collisions, where occupant restraint is provided primarily by seatbelts and airbags, but is also critical for other crash modes such as side impacts, rear impacts, rollovers, as well as multiple impact events. In the rear impact crash mode, occupant restraint is provided primarily by the seatbacks and to some extent the seatbelts. Foundationally, therefore, what becomes fundamental to the seatback's role in rear occupant protection is its ability to contain the occupant within the seat, preventing occupant ramping, as well as preventing the seat's, and/or its occupant's, dangerous intrusion into the rear occupant's survival space where contact with rear compartment components and/ or rear seated occupants can present a significant injury risk. An analysis is presented of a series of rear impact sled testing conducted by the authors that evaluates the timing, position and extent of the front seatback's reward displacement toward and into the rear occupant compartment as well as consideration of the front seat occupant' ramping potential and its injury potential relative to the rear compartment. Additionally, three other series of testing are presented which assess various seat designs occupant retention capabilities. Lastly, a matched-pair comparison test series is presented which evaluates occupant motion in rear impact with and without use of a typical vehicle body mounted 3-point seatbelt. Discussion of restraint system performance observed in all the testing is included along with ATD biofidelity and thigh-gap considerations. The data collected and presented includes accelerometer instrumentation and high speed video analysis.
Empirical vehicle crashworthiness studies are usually based on national or in-depth traffic accident surveys: Data on accident-involved cars/drivers are analysed in order to quantify the chance of driver injury and to assess certain risk factors like car make and model. As the cars/drivers involved in the same accident form a "cluster", where the size of the cluster equals the number of accident-involved parties, traffic accident survey data are typical multi-level data with accidents as first-level or primary and cars/drivers as secondlevel or secondary units (car occupants in general are to be considered as third level units). Consequently, appropriate statistical multi-level models are to be used for driver injury risk estimation purposes as these models properly account for the cluster structure of traffic accident survey data. In recent years various types of regression models for clustered data have been developed in the statistical sciences. This paper presents multi-level statistical models, which are generally applicable for vehicle crashworthiness assessment in the sense that data on single and multiple car crashes can be analysed simultaneously. As a special case of multi-level modelling driver injury risk estimation based on paired-by-collision car/driver data is considered. It is demonstrated that assessment results may be seriously biased, if the cluster structure inherent in traffic accident survey data is erroneously ignored in the data analysis stage.