The ISO working group presented the status of their activities to develop injury risk curves for the 50th male and 5th female dummies. In addition to upcoming web meetings, a face-to-face meeting will be held in November 2011 in conjunction with the Stapp Conference.

For the 50th male, all the curves are ready, but the group still needs to assign AIS levels and determine the best measurements to use to predict risk of injury. Additionally, the group is finalizing recommended guidelines to build injury risk curves, which were evaluated using the WorldSID 50th samples. It is expected that ISO will approve the final version of the guidelines and risk curves at their November 2011 meeting. A vehicle manufacturer requested that the WorldSID group agree to preliminary injury risk curves for the 50th to aid those that are testing, by having a standard performance metric. The group did not feel that they had enough information to make these recommendations at this time.

For the WorldSID 5th female, the scaling of test conditions to build the risk curves is the group’s main tasks. Transportation Research Labs (TRL) will conduct work on the effects of the different normalization possibilities, as sponsored by the European Commission. The group needs to find consensus on the scaled test conditions to be used before testing can start. NHTSA plans on conducting some of testing in the second half of 2011. Additionally, TRL will conduct some testing with a borrowed 5th female. Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) also offered to conduct some testing, if they can borrow a dummy. Transport Canada offered their 2 dummies for loan. Once data for all the test conditions are available, the group can begin building the injury risk curves using the guidelines developed for the 50th male.

TRL’s work is focused in three areas: injury risk, biofidelity, and multi-point chest deflection measurement. With respect to injury risk and biofidelity, TRL is working closely with the ISO group. The programme is looking at Post Mortem Human Subjects (PMHSs) testing and comparing it to sled tests to see which PMHS align with the force plates in the same way. They are also reviewing the scaling methods to apply PMHS data to the dummy. Additionally, they will be performing biofidelity and/or injury risk tests to fill information gaps identified by ISO.

TRL also looked into installing RibEye into the 5th female to have multi-point sensing of the thorax deflection, but cited major problems technically and financially. The group felt it was important to install RibEye into the 5th female dummy to fully understand the biofidelity responses of the dummy and to help interpret the information recorded from the 1D- and 2D-IR-TRACC systems. Humanetics would provide a quote for the cost to develop a RibEye for the 5th Female. NHTSA and the European Commission are considering funding the development/purchase of the system for the 5th female. MCW offered to perform testing with the RibEye system and to determine if an algorithm could be developed to correlate the 2D-IR-TRACC system results with the RibEye results.

Autoliv presented analysis from a series of sled tests and vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests. Results from the 5th female testing in the rear seating positions showed that that the WorldSID 5th female had different kinematic behavior and different deflection measurements than the SIDIIs. It was noted to fully compare the results we need reliable risk functions and more measurements in the pelvis.

They conducted a series of sled tests using the EuroNCAP side impact pulse and a fixture with a generic intruding side door. The WorldSID 50th and 5th dummies were positioned on a seat fitted with a thorax side airbag. Several durability issues were noted after the testing, including problems with the pelvis measurements and the 50th shoulder IR-TRACC.

In the vehicle-to-vehicle tests, they investigated a number of different aspects of the crash including the influence of impact speed, mass ratio, and compatibility. Conclusions from the testing showed that the WorldSID dummy is a good tool and that side airbags reduce the risk of thoracic injury. It also directed focus of future testing to pelvis loading, occupant-to-occupant interaction, rear seat occupants, and senior occupants.

Objectives of the testing were to compare constant velocity impacts to the shoulder and thorax, compare results to previously published PMHS testing, and examine chest deflections. Results indicated that the peak impact force and peak chest lateral deformation for the WorldSID 50th tend to increase when the impact location moves from shoulder to mid-thorax, while the PMHS testing shows the opposite trend for peak force but similar results for deflection. Future research will include an investigation into deflection differences, differences in load/deflection trends, and spine kinematics/rib cage deformation.

UMTRI reported on PMHS and WorldSID 50th male dummy abdomen comparison testing using a two-mass sled system to obtain the typical side impact crash signature. Biofidelity targets were generated using the techniques from the ISO frontal biofidelity group chaired by Matthieu Lebarbe. Results indicate that the WorldSID abdomen does not deform as much as the PMHS under similar loading conditions. The WorldSID pelvis may need to be less stiff and have a less tightly coupled mass. Additionally, the thigh flesh may also be too stiff. The full analysis and results are published in ESV Paper 11-0080.

The Medical College of Wisconsin reported on the side impact sled work being conducted using a new, sophisticated instrumented wall system that adjusts to the PMHS or dummy anthropometry. The focus of the study is oblique responses in specific body regions, since oblique responses result in greater injury metrics than pure lateral. In the first phase of testing, chest bands were used to compare loading of the PMHS and dummy. Further testing will be conducted to develop biofidelity characteristics, develop PHS response corridors, and assess WorldSIDs potential to sense injury metrics using deflection sensors.