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The aircraft seats facing bulkheads, interior walls, class dividers, lavatory, front seat back or instrument panels of aircraft have presented problems demonstrating the compliance with the Head Injury Criteria (HIC) requirement. Full scale sled tests provide means of assessing the response of the occupants and the potential head injuries in an aircraft crash which is extremely costly, time-consuming, and provide too much scatter on the HIC. These factors have motivated the Federal Aviation Administration, seat and airframe manufacturers as well as research providers such as the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to pursue alternative testing procedures to replace the full-scale sled tests. This paper presents the results of a series of baseline sled tests of the system seat/ATD/restraint/bulkhead conducted at the NIAR horizontal sled which will be used to validate component test devices.

A series of side facing seat impact sled tests were conducted using the SID, EuroSID-1 and BioSID side impact Anthropomorphic Test Dummies (ATDs) at the FAA Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI). The tests were performed on a side facing sofa fixture with a rigid bulkhead adjacent to the forward end of the seat. The purpose of the research project was to examine the methods utilized by the automobile industry to assess thoracic injuries due to side impact accidents, and to investigate the potential applicability of these methods for side facing seats and sofas in civil aircraft. Tests were conducted with single and double occupants. The test conditions complied with the 16g 44 f/s horizontal impact specified in 14 CFR 25.562. Various side impact injury criteria were evaluated in the tests, including the Thoracic Trauma Index (TTI), Viscous Criteria (VC), rib deflection and pelvis acceleration.