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Car accident investigations have shown that the head, the chest and the abdomen are the three most vulnerable body regions in side impacts, when serious-to-fatal (MAIS 3-6) injuries are considered. Injuries are much more common to occupants seated on the struck side than to those on the non-struck side. The development of new side impact protection systems has therefore been focused on struck side occupants. The first airbag system for side impact protection, jointly developed by Volvo and Autoliv, was introduced on the market in 1994. The SIPS bag is seat-mounted and protects mainly the chest and the abdomen, and also to some extent the head, since the head's lateral relative displacement is reduced by the side airbag, thereby keeping the head inside the car's outer profile. However, if an external object is exposed in the head area, for example in a truck-to-car side impact or in a single car collision into a pole or a tree, there is a need for an additional head protection device.

Injuries in side impact collisions constitute one fourth of the serious or fatal injuries sustained by occupants in ordinary passenger cars. The Volvo Side Impact Protection System (SIPS) provides a substantially enhanced protection for car occupants in side collisions. The protection level of the SIPS system has been further increased by the addition of the Sipsbag, a quick-deploying side impact airbag system integrated in the seat backrest. The design of the non-electrical Sipsbag system is explained, as well as the advantages with a completely seat-integrated system. The process to industrialise the side airbag concept is summarised. Laboratory test results are discussed. Using methodology to correlate laboratory test data with accident data, an estimate of the injury-reducing effectiveness of the SIPS and Sipsbag system is made.

This paper describes a method for predicting the real-world safety performance of a new or modified car design over the whole range of crash severities where injuries occur. With a knowledge of the crash severity distribution, the overall effectiveness of alternative design approaches can be estimated by correlating lab test dummy responses with real-world injury risks at different crash severities. The procedure can be used for selecting the most effective among several design options or, inversely, for establishing a dummy response limit curve corresponding to a desired occupant protection goal. Tentatively applied to car-to-car side impacts, the method turned out to be a practicable and promising evaluation instrument.

The improvement of side impact protection is today a major concern to the crashworthiness community. A prerequisite for making this development possible is the establishment of a common side impact test method, representative of several traffic environments. Volvo has made a study aimed at determining the suitability of a moving barrier test as a tool for the development of side impact protection. Traffic accident data from car-to-car accidents have been used as reference to full-scale tests. Certain test parameters have been varied to find out if an improved correlation is possible between real-world accidents and laboratory collision. To further understand the interaction between the occupant and the car structure, sled testing has been used as a complement. The conclusion of the study is that a suitable side impact test method is a moving deformable barrier (MDB) impacting in a 90° noncrabbed configuration.

Based upon official Swedish investigations and studies carried out by the Volvo Car Corporation, this report gives a short review of seat belt use in Sweden before and after the introduction of the mandatory seat belt wearing law, various factors influencing belt use, injury reducing effects of belt use (with respect to severity, injured body region, front seat versus rear seat, children versus adults, etc), and the injury-reducing effects of the Swedish belt wearing law, introduced in 1975. Briefly, belt wearing is very effective in reducing injuries, concerning both adults and children, and the effects of the Swedish mandatory belt wearing law are very positive.