Development of a Comparison Technique Between Crash Tests and Real-World Crashes

The first objective of this research was to create a repeatable method for finding similar crash tests to compare to real world crashes using the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) database and common crash test databases. Each of the Toyota-Wake Forest University CIREN cases with horizontal principle direction of force (PDOF) impacts was compared to a similar crash test by developing a standard protocol for comparison methods. Once a similar case was found, a comparison technique was developed for the vehicle, crash, occupant, and injury characteristics between the cases. A similarity scoring method was created to determine how closely each case compared and then all scored cases were ranked. There were 18 “poor” comparisons, 72 “fair” comparisons, and 10 “good” comparisons. By investigating this scoring method, common similarities and differences between crash tests and real-world crashes were discovered. For all 10 “good” comparison cases that ranked at least 11 points out of a total of 13 points, further analysis was performed to compare dummy injury measures to real-world occupant injuries. This included anthropomorphic test device (ATD) injury assessment reference values and current injury criteria with associated risk curves. Only one crash test dummy analyzed in this study exceeded the critical value for the test. This was a side impact crash test where the pelvis exceeded the critical acceleration value. The comparison real-world case occupant sustained pelvic fractures as a result of their crash. In the future, this comparison method could be incorporated into existing crash databases to perform more comparisons. These results may prove to be essential in developing new soft tissue injury criteria, as well as investigating vehicle crashworthiness in reference to crash test results as well as real-world crashes.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Loftis, Kathryn L.

• crash test

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/14841

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/14841