Title: Effectiveness of vehicle passive safety systems in lateral fixed-object collisions

Authors: Luke Gaylor; Mirko Junge; Sylvester Abanteriba

Addresses: Volkswagen AG, Konzernforschung Unfallforschung (K/GERFK-U), Wolfsburg, Germany; School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia ' Volkswagen AG, Konzernforschung Unfallforschung (K/GERFK-U), Wolfsburg, Germany ' School of Aeerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract: Lateral impacts with narrow objects subject the side of the vehicle to highly concentrated loading. Passive safety systems such as thoracic and head side airbags attempt to prevent injury during the given impact. The aim of the research is to evaluate the real-world effectiveness of the airbags systems by reviewing NASS-CDS data. The risk of injury is directly compared for vehicles with and without the deployed airbags. A total of 209 raw events (60,794 weighted) were obtained, of which 38 (2784 weighted) vehicles provided additional thoracic protection with the airbag and 28 (2450 weighted) had a head airbag deploy. The results indicated a strong protective ability of the head side airbags to prevent injury. On the other hand, no distinctive benefit could be attributed to the deployed thoracic airbags.

Keywords: fixed object collisions; side airbags; thoracic injury; head/face/neck injury; pelvis injury; abdomen injury.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVS.2018.097705

International Journal of Vehicle Safety, 2018 Vol.10 No.3/4, pp.195 - 211

Received: 28 Jan 2017
Accepted: 23 May 2018
Published online: 05 Feb 2019 *

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