Methodology for vehicle safety development and assessment accounting for occupant response variability to human and non-human factors

Daniel Perez-Rapela, Jason L. Forman, Samuel H. Huddleston and Jeff R. Crandall

Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 2020, vol. 24, issue 4, 384-399

Abstract: The use of standardized anthropomorphic test devices and test conditions prevent current vehicle development and safety assessments from capturing the breadth of variability inherent in real-world occupant responses. This study introduces a methodology that overcomes these limitations by enabling the assessment of occupant response while accounting for sources of human- and non-human-related variability. Although the methodology is generic in nature, this study explores the methodology in its application to human response in far-side motor vehicle crashes as an example. A total of 405 human body model simulations were conducted in a mid-sized sedan vehicle environment to iteratively train two neural networks to predict occupant head excursion and thoracic injury as a function of occupant anthropometry, impact direction and restraint configuration. The neural networks were utilized in Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the probability of head-to-intruding-door impacts and thoracic AIS 3+ as a function of the restraint configuration. This analysis indicated that the vehicle used in this study would lead to a range of 667 to 2,448 head-to-intruding-door impacts and a range of 3,041 to 3,857 cases of thoracic AIS 3+ in the real world, depending on the seatbelt load limiter. These real-world results were later successfully validated using United States field data. This far-side assessment illustrates how the methodology incorporates the human and non-human variability, generates response surfaces that characterize the effects of the variability, and ultimately permits vehicle design considerations and injury predictions appropriate for real-world field conditions.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/10255842.2020.1830380

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