Citation

Turchi R, Altenhof W, Kapoor T, Howard AW. Int. J. Crashworthiness 2004; 9(4): 419-431.

Affiliation

Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering, University of Windsor; Hospital for Sick Children, Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, Toronto

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1533/ijcr.2004.0300

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This research focuses on the injury potential of children in forward and rearward facing child restraint seats in frontal collisions. Experimental sled tests were completed following the guidelines outlined in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213 using a Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy in a convertible forward/rearward facing child restraint seat. The seat was equipped with a five point child safety belt and the experimental test was completed in the forward facing configuration. The Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy was equipped with three uniaxial accelerometers arranged in mutually perpendicular directions in the head and chest. A numerical model employing a subset of the apparatus used in the forward facing experimental sled test was developed and numerically simulated using LSDYNA. To verify the numerical simulations, the head and chest accelerations were compared to the experimental findings and it was observed that a reasonable correlation between the data existed. Further numerical simulations were completed to investigate the influence of positioning the 3-year-old dummy in the rearward configuration on the head and neck injury potential during frontal crash. Through an analysis of injury criteria, using neck loads and head accelerations, it was observed that the rearward facing child dummy sustained significantly lower levels of neck injury criteria while exhibiting similar levels of the head injury criteria as the forward facing child dummy.