FHWA CRASH TESTS FIND NEW APPLICATION

Since 1970, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has crashed more than 2,000 vehicles in testing guardrails, median barriers, and breakaway luminaire supports. These tests have included many different kinds of impacts with both the front and side of a vehicle. After a crash, complex spinning motion and rollovers sometimes occur. The National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) is using these crash film resources in a new way for a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sponsored program. The objective is to find out how air bag-protected occupants are being injured in frontal crashes. Frontal crash tests conducted by NHTSA are useful in evaluating how air bags work under a standard crash. In these tests, the crash test dummy moves straight forward into the air bag. However, research is showing that many injuries occur because people miss the air bag. The FHWA crash tests are used to study occupant motion in complex real-world crashes. Using the resources of the FHWA/NHTSA Crash Film Library, NCAC has developed a new methodology for reconstructing real-world crashes. NCAC maintains a library of all the crash test films and data conducted by FHWA and NHTSA since 1970. More than 15,000 test films of almost every model of vehicle are in the library. Each crash in the study is initially documented by an experienced crash investigator. Photographs and descriptions of the crash scene, vehicle, occupant, and injuries are available. The NHTSA crash films of a similar vehicle are reviewed to determine the characteristics of the vehicle and air bag in a standard frontal crash. Next, the FHWA crash tests provide a vehicle that produced motion similar to that observed in the real-world crash. Using a combination of the NHTSA and FHWA crash test films as a basis, the occupant motion is reconstructed by computer simulation. This determines the actual motion of the occupant and the probable reason for the injury. This research approach has discovered injury mechanisms not apparent in standard air bag testing. (Entire Article)