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A new highly biofidelic side impact dummy, the WorldSID 50th percentile male, has been developed under the supervision of the International Organization for Standardization in order to harmonize a number of existing side impact dummies in one single dummy. Momentum is growing for using the WorldSID in safety tests in the EU and the US. In the present study, two Euro-NCAP pole side impact tests were conducted to compare ES-2 and WorldSID responses in a mid-size SUV with respective seating positions as stipulated in the Euro-NCAP test conditions and fitted with the same side airbag. It was found that, compared with ES-2, the chest, abdomen and pelvis accelerations of WorldSID are more sensitive to variation in the applied external load transmitted by the deployed side airbag and door intrusion.

The causes of injuries suffered by drivers in “small-overlap frontal crashes” (SOFC) were examined. These crashes were defined as ones in which vehicles are loaded outside their longitudinal side members. SOFC accident data sets stored in the National Automotive Sampling System-Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS) database were investigated. Percentages of cases sustaining injury to each body region of drivers were calculated, and the differences between the percentages of injury by body region were examined. To investigate the injury mechanisms, SOFC tests with two types of rigid barrier were then conducted. Injury values in each body region were analyzed to validate the reproducibility of SOFC test as a relevant test.

Improving the robustness of vehicle crashworthiness in relation to the impact angle may be quite important in enhancing vehicle safety under actual driving conditions. This importance can also be inferred from the fact that almost all of the accidents classified as frontal crashes in real-world driving have an impact angle. The first step of this research was to make clear the differences between inline offset impacts and oblique offset impacts, focusing on the behavior of the vehicle. Based on the results obtained, a feasibility study for improving the robustness of vehicle crashworthiness relative to the impact angle in frontal collisions was carried out. In order to analyze vehicle behavior and examine ways of improving robustness, oblique offset car-to-car (CTC) impact tests were conducted and simulations were run using finite element (FE) models. The method of evaluating vehicle body strength that was reported by Kitagawa et al. [7] was utilized to process the data.