A Comparison Study of Two Side Impact Dummies Based on the Probability of Injury Risk Curves

In recent years, WorldSID dummy has been continuously developed and investigated to better represent biofidelic ATD as well as a device for replacement of the current existing ES-2 side impact dummy. In Korea, the side impact type traffic accident is one of the major sever accidents in terms of numbers of accidents and fatality. Since 2003, 50kph 90 degree side crash test has been initiated as a safety standard with ES-1 at the first stage and also same time 55 kph impact speed test has been conducted as a part of Korea New Car Assessment Program (KNCAP) program. Currently only ES-2 is accepted as a regulatory tool for vehicle certification and KNCAP. In spite of the introduction of side impact regulation and New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test procedures for the protection in lateral collisions during the last 10 years, injuries in this accident type still constitute a significant category of road traffic injuries. The fatality from side impact accidents has not been successfully decreased as expected. The head injury is major sources of fatality in side impact crash accidents in Korea. In 2009, for further enhancing the protection of side collision, the perpendicular 29 kph pole side impact test with ES-2 dummy has been introduced as an optional test in KNCAP. The main objective of the optional pole side impact test was to promote installation of side curtain airbag in the vehicle fleet as a standard option. In this study, injury outcome from WorldSID and ES-2 were evaluated with the two different types of vehicle sizes, small and medium size vehicles crash tests. Also, the computer simulations were performed. In this simulation matrix, impact speeds (50 kph, 55 kph), MDB types (MDB and AE-MDB) were considered as variables. In fact, WorldSID 50th male dummy's injury risk criteria limits are not finalized yet. Only the injury criteria categories have been just defined in the informal meeting as head injury criteria (HIC36), shoulder performance criteria (shoulder force: Fy), thorax performance criteria (thorax rib deflection), abdominal performance criteria (abdominal rib deflection and T12 resultant acceleration) and pelvis performance criteria (peak pubic symphysis force) Also the injury criteria and dimension of body structures between ES-2 and WorldSID cannot match each other. In this study, in steads of direct comparison between two dummy's performances, the percentages of injury risk probability were compared with each individual body parts. ES-2 shows higher thoracic rib deflection compared with WorldSID for compact size vehicle. But mid-size case, two dummy's injury risk probability are same levels. The abdomen injuries from two dummies were similar but WorldSID showed lower pelvic injuries. In this study, only 2 different types of vehicles were tested with ES-2 and WorldSID. A small amount of rib deflection from the WorldSID may due to the upper body rotation during the impacts. From this study, the injury patterns are similar between two dummies. However, the probability of injury risk in the thoracic body was not higher than the ES-2 for small size vehicle.