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In December 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a Request for Comments on proposed changes to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). One potential change is the addition of a frontal oblique impact (OI) crash test using the Test Device for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR). The resultant acetabulum force, which is a unique and specifically defined in the THOR dummy, will be considered as a new injury metric. In this study, the results of ten OI tests conducted by NHTSA on current production mid-sized vehicles were investigated. Specifically, the test data was used to study the lower extremity kinematics for the driver and front passenger THOR dummies. It was found that the acetabulum force patterns varied between the driver and passenger and between the left leg and the right leg of the occupants. The maximum acetabulum force can occur either on the left side or right side of a driver or a front passenger in an OI event.

On December 2015, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published its proposal to implement U.S New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) changes covering three categories of crashworthiness, crash avoidance and pedestrian protection, beginning with the 2019 model year. The crashworthiness category included a new frontal oblique impact (OI) test protocol. The test compromises of a new Oblique Moving Deformable Barrier (OMDB), new THOR 50th percentile male (THOR-50M) anthropomorphic test device (ATD), and a new test configuration. An OMDB of 2,486 kg (5,480 lb) impacts a stationary target vehicle at a speed of 90 kph (56 mph) at an angle of 15 degrees with a 35% barrier overlap with the front end of the target vehicle. In vehicle-to-vehicle collisions, the lighter weight vehicle experience higher velocity change and higher acceleration levels, thereby, occupants in the lighter vehicle experience higher injury risk.