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Abstract
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27th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV): Enhanced and Equitable Vehicle Safety for All: Toward the Next 50 Years
https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/27/27ESV-000314.pdf
Research Question/Objective: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has developed an Oblique Offset Moving Deformable Barrier (OMDB) test procedure. The OMDB test procedure uses an energy absorbing honeycomb that covers the front face of the OMDB. Originally, this barrier had a full-width design that was representative of a typical passenger car. During the development of this test procedure, it was realized that less than half of the barrier face was being deformed. Since only half the honeycomb was being deformed it was determined this was a waste of material and added cost to perform the test. Also, it was brought to NHTSA's attention that the manufacturing of the full-width barrier face was complicated by the need for straps. Therefore, NHTSA is developing a barrier with a face whose width is about half of the original. It is referred to as the "Half Barrier." Two different versions of the Half Barrier design, V0 and V1, are investigated herein.
Methods and Data Sources: The Full, Half V0, and Half V1 barrier faces were tested using the OMDB test procedure with rigid moving barrier and production vehicles, representing different size vehicles. In each test with production vehicles, THOR-50M Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATDs) were positioned in the driver and right front passenger seat. Differences in barrier, vehicle, and occupant response were assessed using CORA rating software. To eliminate the variability of production vehicles a set of tests using a rigid moving barrier was used as the target vehicle. Differences in barrier, vehicle, and occupant response were assessed using CORA.
Results: The impacts into the rigid moving barrier showed a "Good" CORA score for the rigid moving barrier responses, though the barrier crush and energy had different trends. In the production vehicle tests, some differences were seen in the vehicle crash pulses and intrusions when comparing different barrier faces within the same vehicle. For example, the large pickup truck showed a more severe crash pulse using the Half V1 barrier face, suggesting that V1 is stiffer than the other barrier faces Discussion and Limitations: During this testing it was noted that the two layers of honeycomb had a slight separation. This separation was seen in the full-width barrier and both designs of the Half Barrier. It is unknown how much this separation affects the vehicle and ATD response. This study was limited by the number of observations, as only one test was conducted for each barrier face/vehicle combination, and only three production vehicles were tested. However, the range of vehicles was selected to cover a wide range of characteristics.
Conclusions and Relevance to Session Submitted: The Half V0 barrier face design has been tentatively selected as a replacement for the full-width barrier for use in NHTSA's OMDB test procedure. It shows comparable results to the full-width barrier for both the vehicle and THOR-50M performance. The Half Barrier V1 design seemed to be too stiff for larger vehicles |