Abstract
The effects of bullet vehicle crash impact angle, child restraint system design and restraint harness slack at standard test side impact speed of 24.4 km/h (15 mph) on moments sustained at the neck by a three year old child is investigated. A statistical methodology employing the Design of Experiments is adopted in this study whereby a Latin Hypercube Sampling is chosen as the experiment design. Mathematical models are built using the Response Surface Method based on simulation results whereby, good fitness is achieved. The singular and cross interactive effect of each predictor on the neck moment is analyzed. The number of significant parameters affecting the Neck Moment is shown to be largest for wide impact angles (ϕ≥60°). The vehicle impact angle parameter is revealed to be the largely the most sensitive parameter and on which all the other remaining parameters are highly dependent on. An ideal safe range for low neck moments has been established to be within φ angles 42° and 60°. The vehicle impact angle parameter is shown to be proportional to neck moments for wide impact angles, while it behaves inversely proportional to neck moments for narrow impact angles. The other parameters are generally found to be moderately significant only for wide impact angles. The harness friction coefficient is shown to hold relatively very little influence on neck moments.
Highlights
It has been shown, over the last two decades, that vehicle crashes has become the leading cause of death for children in developed countries (NHTSA, 2005; Statistics Canada, 2003)
The Neck Moment (NM) severity range is indicated for Principle Direction of Force (PDOF) impact angles less than 39° and greater than 68°
The singular and cross interactive parameter sensitivity for Neck Moments in a 3 year old child involved in intrusive side impact at standard test impact speed of 32.2 km/h is studied and acceptable values of the t statistic and its significance p are obtained and reported
Summary
Over the last two decades, that vehicle crashes has become the leading cause of death for children in developed countries (NHTSA, 2005; Statistics Canada, 2003). Many factors contribute to this scenario, one of which is the presence of shoulder harness slack (Decina and Knoebel, 1996) Another is due to the kinematics of side impact crash which depends upon both the magnitude of the impulse from the bullet vehicle, as well as its Principle Direction of Force (PDOF) impacting angle (Anderson et al, 2011). The effects and relationships between the singular and cross interactive parameters, especially for oblique side impact involving intrusion are not studied (Arbogast et al, 2005) Insights obtained from such a work would serve to promote better understanding of the side impact crash event in order to achieve greater injury mitigation
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