Development of Point Mass Occupant Injury Criteria Using Event Data Recorders

This article reports on a study that developed a method of estimating the probability of serious occupant injury in frontal crashes based on vehicle kinematics information. The authors modeled the human as a point mass and computed the occupant impact velocity (OIV) using the flail space model to determine occupant injury risk. The study then used Event Data Recorder data to provide vehicle kinematics information for real world crashes with known injury outcomes. A data set of 211 cases is used for methodology development and preliminary insight to the injury prediction capability of the metric. Analyses generated injury risk curves for all data, a belted occupant subset and an unbelted occupant subset. Based on the models, an occupant restrained by an airbag and safety belt is found to have a lower risk of injury than an occupant only restrained by an airbag. A 50% probability of serious injury is found to correspond to an OIV of 11.2 m/s and 15.9 m/s for unbelted and belted occupants, respectively.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00678856
• Authors:
  • Gabauer, Douglas J
  • Gabler, Hampton C
• Publication Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 166-171
• Serial:
  • Biomedical Sciences Instrumentation
  • Volume: 42
  • Publisher: Instrument Society of America
  • ISSN: 0067-8856

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air bags; Computer models; Crash injuries; Crash injury research; Event data recorders; Frontal crashes; Kinetics; Mathematical prediction; Risk assessment; Seat belts
• Identifier Terms: Occupant Impact Velocity
• Uncontrolled Terms: Flail space model
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor; I84: Personal Injuries; I91: Vehicle Design and Safety;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01042714
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 1 2007 8:40AM