New Car Assessment Program Research Articles

Correlation of Road Safety Criteria with Occupant Safety Criteria in Impacts on Crash Cushions

Road restraint systems are used to protect vehicle occupants if the vehicle runs off the road and potentially collides with a dangerous obstacle. These road restraint systems must successfully pass the tests defined in EN 1317, or the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) before they are allowed to be installed. The safety assessment is carried out according to the criteria of ASI (Acceleration Severity Index), THIV (Theoretical Head Impact Velocity), OIV (Occupant Impact Velocity), ORA (Occupant Ridedown Acceleration), and PHD (Post-Impact Head Deceleration). Usually very old vehicles are used for these tests, and there is no assessment of occupant criteria such as HIC (Head Injury Criteria), chest deflection, etc. The objective of the study was to compare the occupant safety of vehicles that are commonly used in EN 1317 with vehicles that have improved safety equipment. Test results from two different vehicles (a commonly used vehicle in EN 1317 and a vehicle with improved safety equipment) and two different impact conditions (full overlap and an overlap of 50%) were compared. Measurement data from a Hybrid HIII 50th percentile anthropomorphic test device (ATD) (Denton ATD, INC.) was recorded during the tests to assess occupant safety. The tests have shown that vehicles with improved safety equipment perform better than vehicles that are commonly used in EN 1317-3 tests. The values for the occupant safety criteria assessed were well below the Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) or Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) limits. However, the limits of the road safety criteria were in some cases considerably exceeded regardless of the vehicle. This has been observed in particular for the offset impact condition. THIV and OIV were supposed to be able to assess the risk of head injuries. However, these two criteria correlated negatively with the head criteria, HIC or a3ms. However, a positive correlation was found for the ASI with the HIC and the a3ms head acceleration. Even if some of the criteria for road safety correlate with the criteria for occupant safety, it is doubtful whether the criteria for road safety are suitable for assessing the risk of injury to vehicle occupants.

Evaluation of the mechanical shock testing standards for electric vehicle batteries

The safety of Li-ion batteries (LIB) has become an important issue with the continuously increased use of electric vehicles (EV) in the world. In a survivable vehicle crash, when the vehicle needs to maintain structural integrity, crash-induced shock may damage EV's LIB. Therefore, an evaluation of commonly used mechanical shock test standards for EV battery module and pack is performed in this study against the crash-induced shock signals collected from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) tests. Various shock analysis methods including signal characteristics in time domain, power spectral density (PSD) and shock response spectrum (SRS) in frequency domain, and the acceleration/velocity-change diagram are used for the evaluation. It is found that most peak accelerations of NCAP shock signals significantly exceed the peak accelerations specified in shock testing standards. Crash-induced shocks cannot be fully represented by the half-sine pulse adopted in shock testing standards. In both time and frequency domains, the existing shock testing standards generally underestimate the severities of the crash-induced shocks, and therefore, are non-conservative. It also shows that the correct selection of a filter for the processing of the original crash-induced shock signal is crucial for the specification of EV battery shock environment and shock response analyses. The results obtained in this research can support the development of more reliable shock testing standards for EV batteries.

Jarak Berhenti Motosikal Berkapasiti Enjin Rendah dengan Brek Anti-kunci

Motorcycles are among the favorite transportation preferred by Malaysians. Almost half of the vehicles registered in Malaysia are motorcycles. This is due to the price affordability and size, where almost 80% of the motorcycles owned are categorized under engine capacity below 250 cc. Similar to other Southeast Asia countries, motorcyclists remain the highest contributor to road traffic fatalities and injuries in Malaysia. The New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), has elevated the importance of safety technology in passenger cars such as antilock braking system (ABS) and autonomous emergency braking (AEB) in order to protect the occupants. However, the limitation of space and power requirements in two-wheel motorcycles deferred the technology implementation. Previous studies have attempted to study the effectiveness of ABS for motorcycles with 250 cc and above. Focusing on the low cc motorcycle of less than 250 cc, this paper compares motorcycle braking distance and rider stability between motorcycles with ABS and motorcycles without ABS during dry and wet conditions. The braking distance produced by ABS is reduced by 50% and 12% in dry and wet conditions respectively. In addition, motorcycles with ABS were tested at higher speeds of 50 km/h. ABS motorcycles shows consistent data for a series of tests. This finding demonstrates the effectiveness of ABS in improving braking performance for low cc motorcycles.

Analyzing the downforce generated by rear spoiler of hatchback vehicle and creating an aeromapp using CFD analysis

Aeromapping is a chart which shows the changes in a performance metric such as Coefficient of Lift, Coefficient of Drag and balance as a function of the car attitudes. A generic four-wheeler vehicle body was designed for commercial purposes. In this study, the working principle was based on Bernoulli’s principle of Fluid Flow. Laminar flow was tested on the model of the vehicle under static conditions. From the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) standards, boundary conditions were fixed, so that the experiment can be as realistic as possible. Using ANSYS Fluent multiple simulations were done varying the experimental parameters, such as Fluid velocity, Yaw Angle of the Vehicle and varying the Fluid Pressure. All of these experiments were studied using the flow visualization, pressure graphs, graphs between independent variables etc. Successful results were achieved and the aero map was created and a significant downforce of 33% was achieved.

A Study on Small Vehicle Structure in Rear Under-Ride Impact by Using A CAE Based Methodology

This study simulated and evaluated the safety of a small car structure in a collision with the rear of a truck. The parameters of bumpers currently used in Vietnam were employed to build a model of the rear truck bumper. The setting of simulation conditions was based on the NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) crash test. According to actual crash conditions, a collision simulation was performed with different vehicle speeds from 40 to 60 km/h, corresponding to the case of a passenger vehicle moving in a city colliding with a truck standing still. In addition, the percentage of rear-end collision was also taken into account, just like in real-world collisions, at 25%, 50%, and full rear impact. The simulation results were analyzed and evaluated according to the IIHS rating (Institute Insurance for Highway Safety). The results from different case studies showed that the rear bumper typically used on trucks is only safe for passenger cars in a collision at a low speed of 40 km/h and that in a collision at a higher speed will affect the passenger’s safe space and cause high injuries and casualties. Therefore, it is necessary to improve safety by optimizing the rear bumper design and the frontal structure of the small car chassis.

Improving Lane Detection Performance for Autonomous Vehicle Integrating Camera with Dual Light Sensors

Automotive companies have studied the development of lane support systems in order to secure the Euro New Car Assessment Program (NCAP)’s high score. A front camera module is applied with safety assistance systems in an intelligent vehicle. However, the front camera module has limitations in terms of backlight conditions, entering or exiting tunnels, and night driving because of lower image quality. In this paper, we propose an integrated camera with dual light sensor for improving lane detection performance under the worst conditions. We include a new algorithm to enhance image data quality and improve edge detection and lane tracking using illumination information. We evaluate the tests under various conditions on a real road. These tests are performed on 728 km of road (under various external situations and lane types) for false alarm rates. The experimental results show that the system is promising in terms of reliability, enhancement, and improvements.

Crashworthiness among side pole testing

This research presents results from measurement data analysis of 47 oblique side impact pole crash tests conducted for the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). Integrating measured acceleration data allowed to calculate changes of velocity and other key parameter like coefficient of restitution of the impacts. An objective of this work was, to obtain parameters for the side crash, which can be useful for vehicular accident reconstruction. Despite of identical test velocity, we can observe a wide range of kinetic energy induced due to the to some extent tremendously differing masses of the vehicles. In addition, the part of this energy, which is dissipated into deformation energy, differs enormously. In some cases, the kinetic energy after impact is unexpected high, which in this case is equal to a comparatively large change of velocity (Δv). Analysing the dummy measurements of the considered side pole tests, we cannot observe a relationship between velocity change of the vehicle and load of the dummy. Resultant restrictions for the use of delta-V as crash severity metric or predictor for the risk of injury are discussed.

In cars (are we really safest of all?): interior sensing and emotional opacity

ABSTRACT This paper analyses expert and regulatory perspectives on car driver-monitoring systems that measure bodies to infer and react to emotions, fatigue, and attentiveness. Developers of driver-monitoring systems promise increased safety on the road, alongside comfort for cabin occupants through personalisation and automation. The impetus is three-fold, namely: (1) European road safety policy seeks to vastly reduce road deaths using computational surveillance; (2) there is a growing interest around in cabin safety solutions that sense emotion and affective states of drivers and passengers; and (3) autonomous driving trends are changing the nature of interactions between vehicle and driver. Safety led applications are of special interest because they are backed by policy and standards initiatives including the European Union’s Vision Zero policy and the industry led New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP). Informed by 13 interviews with experts working in and around in-cabin sensing technologies, this paper first identifies and explores features of emergent in-cabin profiling through emotional artificial intelligence (AI) and biometric measures. It then examines how in-car sensing should be regulated by analysing data protection laws and the proposed EU AI Act. A deep ambivalence emerged from our participants around the emergence of emotional AI in cars, and how best to regulate these technologies.

The power and sensitivity of four core driver workload measures for benchmarking the distraction potential of new driver vehicle interfaces

This study evaluated the power and sensitivity of several core driver workload measures in order to better understand their use as a component of future driver distraction potential evaluation procedures of the in-vehicle human machine interface (HMI). Driving is a task that requires visual, manual and cognitive resources to perform. Secondary tasks, such as mobile phone use and interaction with in-built navigation, which load onto any of these three processing resources increase driver workload and can lead to impaired driving. Because workload and distraction potential are interrelated, a comprehensive method to assess driver workload that produces valid and predictive results is needed to advance the science of distraction potential evaluation. It is also needed to incorporate into New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) testing regimes. Workload measures of cognitive (DRT [Detection Response Task] Reaction Time), visual (DRT Miss Rate), subjective (NASA-TLX [driver workload questionnaire]), and temporal demand (Task Interaction Time) were collected as participants drove one of 40 vehicles while completing a variety of secondary tasks with varying interaction requirements. Of the evaluated measures, variance and power analyses demonstrated that Task Interaction Time is the most sensitive in detecting differences in driver workload between different in-vehicle HMIs, followed by DRT Miss Rate, NASA-TLX and finally DRT Reaction Time. There were relatively weak correlations between each of the four measures. These results suggest that Task Interaction Time, coupled with a reliable visual demand metric such as DRT Miss Rate, eye glance coding, or visual occlusion, more efficiently detect differences in driver workload between different HMIs compared to DRT Reaction Time and the NASA-TLX questionnaire. These results can be used to improve the understanding of the utility of each of these core driver workload measures in assessing driver distraction potential.

A Comparative Study Between Different NCAPs and The Future of BNVSAP

India is the third largest road network which is used by one percent of the world’s total vehicle population. On this road network six percent of the total of global road traffic accidents occur. India is the sixth-largest car market in the world but is still the only country amongst the global top 10 car markets to not have a testing program. To reduce the number of road traffic accidents, many countries have come up with safety programmes such as Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Program), US NCAP, Latin NCAP, etc. In 2014, Indian government proposed a similar safety assessment program called as Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Program (BNVSAP) but it is since delayed in its implementation due to a number of reasons. The aim of this study is to compare existing NCAPS and the new BNVSAP and propose some improvements in it by studying the experiences gained by the older NCAPS and observing the difference in the situation of road traffic in India and in other countries by analysing real world accident data.

Measured Vehicle Inertial Parameters - NHTSA’s Data through August 2020

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper is the fourth printed listing of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) center-of-gravity (CG) location measurements. The previous papers contained data for 1024 vehicles. This paper includes data for 448 additional vehicles tested as part of NHTSA’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) for the years 2009 through year 2020. The NCAP involves only the CG location measurement; so the vehicles listed in this paper do not have inertial data.</div></div>

Simulation of AEBS Applicability by Changing Radar Detection Angle

As smart cities become a global topic, interest in smart mobility, the core of smart cities, is also growing. The technology that comes closest to general users is “autonomous driving”. In particular, the successful market entry and establishment of some private companies proved that “autonomous driving” is not technology of the future but imminent reality. However, safety in autonomous vehicles that rely on sensors instead of the driver’s five senses has been the focus of attention from the beginning and continues to be so. In this study, we attempted to counter this interest. Based on the actual data of thirty traffic accidents, assuming the AEBS (Autonomous Emergency Braking System) was installed to assist the driver in safe driving, it was reinterpreted through simulation to see what changes occurred in the accident. In the computer program, PC-Crash, the results were first analyzed through simulation using Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Program)’s AEBS test standards. Subsequently, the other variables in the AEBS were controlled and the accident was reinterpreted by changing only the angle of the radar detection sensor. As a result, it was confirmed that a total of 27 accidents out of thirty accidents could have been prevented with the AEBS. In addition, it proved that the crash avoidance rate of vehicles gradually increased as the radar angle increased.

Assessment of Crash Performance of an Automotive Component Made through Additive Manufacturing

The objective of this study was to apply an innovative technique to manufacture a plastic automotive component to reduce its weight and costs, and guarantee its design was safe. A frontal impact sled test was simulated, and the damages to the occupant’s legs were assessed, with specific reference to the dashboard’s glove box. The replacement of the current glove box with a new component fabricated using additive manufacturing was analyzed to evaluate its passive safety performance in the event of an automobile accident. The materials analyzed were polyamide and polypropylene, both reinforced with 5% basalt. The stiffness of the system was previously characterized by reproducing a subsystem test. Subsequently, the same rating test performed by the Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) was reproduced numerically, and the main biomechanical parameters required by the Euro NCAP were estimated for both the current and the additive production of the component.

Research of fatal car-to-pedestrian precrash scenarios for the testing of the active safety system in China

Road safety remains a challenge with numerous Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) suffering from injuries and death every year. Pedestrian protection using active safety systems, such as Automated Emergency Braking (AEB), is an effective measure to combat the situation. Furthermore, the perception of precrash scenarios plays an important role in active safety research. It is essential to understand and define precrash scenarios. This study aimed to apply the obtained typical car-to-pedestrian precrash scenarios from Chinese severely injured pedestrian traffic accidents to develop and test active safety systems. The National Automobile Accident In-Depth Investigation System (NAIS) recorded 467 cases from 2011 to 2018 in China, and 12 items were selected from the NAIS database as description variables for the precrash scenario. The items were divided into four categories: car, pedestrian, road, and environment. Group decision theory was applied to evaluate the importance of each variable in its category. A total of 34 basic scenarios were defined and obtained according to the extracted significant variables. These basic scenarios represented diverse fatal scenarios in China which are crucial for autonomous driving. The frequency distribution of the scenarios demonstrated that the top five scenarios covered 85.3 % of the total. Five scenarios were identified to have the common characteristic of cars going straight. Additionally, 13 detailed scenarios were obtained from the five basic scenarios by using cluster and frequency analyses. In contrast to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test scenarios, weather and lighting conditions were considered in these 13 scenarios, and the driving speed before the crash were mostly distributed in the range of 40–80 km/h (20–60 km/h in the NCAP). Meanwhile, both walking and running were commonly recorded for pedestrians to cross the street from the nearside, compared with records of walking only to cross from the nearside in the NCAP. These results contribute to a reference for test scenarios of pedestrian AEB or Forward Collision Warning (FCW) in China.

Analysis of Vehicle Front Impact Pulse Severity in US NCAP

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">There have been multiple studies on the effect of vehicle impact pulses on occupant responses, and studies on the previous and current US NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) vehicle pulses. This paper analyzes 35 mph (56.3 kph) front impact vehicle pulses and occupant responses in US NCAP tests conducted by the NHTSA from 2011 to 2019. Based on the occupant response analysis, a simple generic occupant restraint force-relative displacement model has been created. This generic model captures the fundamental restraint characteristics of the vehicles in the recent years, and together with the vehicle pulse, they provide several occupant response predictors. Furthermore, this paper proposes a new pulse severity metric PSD (Pulse Severity by Displacement) based on the vehicle impact data statistics, and uses the pulse severity to compare with other pulse severity definitions. It explains the shortcomings of using the vehicle dynamic crush and TTZV (Time-To-Zero Velocity) as pulse severity metrics, and shows how improvements can be made with simple modifications. Data regression methods are used to assess relationships among different metrics and variables. The paper also provides statistics of the vehicle pulses, the trend of pulse severity and characteristics over the years.</div></div>

Estimating near side crash injury risk in best performing passenger vehicles in the United States

The objective of this paper was to develop an injury risk model relating real world injury outcomes in near-side crashes with U.S. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test performance, crash, and occupant properties. The study was motivated by the longer-term goal of predicting injury outcomes in a future fleet in which all vehicles are expected to have passive safety performance equivalent to a 5-star NCAP rating level (the highest star rating and lowest risk of injury).The dataset used to evaluate injury risk was the National Automotive Sampling System / Crashworthiness Data System (NASS/CDS). Case years 2010–2015 were used. An injured occupant was defined as a vehicle occupant who experienced an injury of maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) of 2 or greater, or who were fatally injured. Injury severity was scored using AIS-2005 (2008 update). Cases were selected in which front-row occupants of late-model vehicles were exposed to a near-side crash. Logistic regression was used to develop an injury model with delta-v, belt status, age, and gender as predictor variables. The side crash performance of each vehicle was identified and added to the model by matching each case with the associated performance in the NCAP moving deformable barrier side impact crash test.NCAP MDB test performance, delta-v, and occupant age, sex, and BMI were found to be significant predictors of injury risk. The effect of a 5 % higher risk in the MDB test (approximately one star rating worse) was comparable to a 2.84 km/h increase in delta-v. This model informs the development of active safety systems in a future fleet where vehicle passive safety performance is higher, quantified by the NCAP MDB test.

Frontal impact on bus superstructure as per UNECE R29 and NCAP

Frontal crash for the large vehicle is less severe compared to the lightweight vehicle due to the height position of the driver compartment in the vehicle which sits well above the impact area in any accident involving a passenger vehicle. Due to this reason, most of the coachbuilder does not include crumple zone in their design as what the car’s manufacturer did. However, in the case of frontal collision between two large vehicles or with the rigid wall, the possibility of energy absorption of the structure is very low and the remaining energy will be transferred directly to the driver and occupants. In this respect, two prominent regulations for frontal impact, namely United Nation Economic Commission of Europe (UNECE) Regulation no. 29 and New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) is used to determine whether the structures are having enough strength to withstand the load produced by the impact. This paper deals with the finite element simulation of a frontal impact on bus superstructure by applying both of the regulations. Then, the results for both simulations are compared in terms of energy produced, structure deformations, maximum stress, and the corresponding plastic strains. It is found that the energy from the ECE R29 regulation is lower than NHTSA’s NCAP with 55 kJ and 142 kJ respectively. However, the deformation observed from R29 simulation, the front structures is severely deformed. Meanwhile, the structures in the NCAP simulation are still intact and the steering wheel structures are still not in contact with any body parts of the driver.

Innovative Electric Vehicle Body Design Based on Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Side Impact Conditions

A version of an electric vehicle was developed and designed for the US market on the basis of the required domestic body structure. When compared with the original car, the new car body design leads to two major technical difficulties. First, the installation of high-voltage components such as the battery pack and other new energy sources increases the vehicle weight and occupies a great deal of its structural space; this limits the impact paths and the use of traditional structural designs, which greatly increases the design difficulty. Second, the USA, as an advanced automobile-using country, has well-developed laws and regulations for collision standards, vehicle operating conditions and evaluation standards. Using a combination of butterfly diagram analysis, bending moment management, section forces and other computer-aided simulation and analysis techniques, this paper presents a body structure design that can achieve a “GOOD” evaluation under the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) side impact body structure conditions by optimizing the force transfer path, the B-pillar deformation mode and the threshold support structure. The threshold support structure supports realization of the “GOOD” rating for IIHS side impact and helps the body to meet the crash requirements of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard FMVSS214 and the US New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) requirements for side impact at 32 km/h and 75° angular pole impact.

Vehicle Safety Post-Decade of Action for Road Safety: The Way Forward

continues. The experiences from the Decade of Action will help us to define an effective roadmap for the next decade. Vehicle safety has been one the areas that has been subjected to significant changes over the past decade with advancements in technology, especially in the field of active safety. This change in the field has been more tangible in High Income Countries (HICs). This note suggests a path to determine the effect of vehicle safety in Iran as a Low/Middle Income Country (LMIC), considering the road safety management structure of the country and introduces the priorities that need to be the subject of focus in further stages. As the “Safe System Approach for Road Safety” focuses on reducing the fatalities and injuries, the interactions between human body and the surrounding area, the vehicle becomes an important issue. Therefore, vehicle designs that meet modern safety standards, with the goal of reducing the risk of occurrence of crashes and ensuing injuries become more prominent. As these advancements in active and passive safety features are being introduced in HICs, the nature of these technologies and limited resources in LMICs, require a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of these technologies would help us set more effective strategies in such countries. A profound understanding of the causes of crashes and the following injuries, is an essential step in setting precise strategies to continue reducing fatalities. This issue has been one of the targets during the decade of action, but a structured regime with independence from involved key stakeholders, must be established to precisely determine the role and details of the involvement of vehicle design and technical aspects in occurrence of the crashes and following injuries. As utilizing advanced technologies for upcoming future is a must to enhance the vehicle safety, considering the economic status of the country besides the evidences in the trend of crashes in Iran suggest effective interventions to achieve results in the shortest time, it would be important to examine the possibility of introducing some of the technologies in the shortest possible time, for example: New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) ratings for new car models. ABS/Combined Braking systems and daytime running lights for powered two-wheelers. Automatic Emergency Braking Systems for cars. Electronic stability control systems (ESC) Such interventions can also be considered as a platform that practices the utilization of new processes in LMICs that can improve in the next stages

Evaluation of Hybrid III and THOR-M neck kinetics and injury risk under various restraint conditions during full-scale frontal sled tests

Objective: The objective of this research was to compare the kinetics and predicted injury risks of the Hybrid III (HIII) and Test device for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR)-M necks during full-scale frontal sled tests under 3 safety restraint conditions: knee bolster (KB), knee bolster and steering wheel airbag (KB/SWAB), and knee bolster airbag and steering wheel airbag (KBAB/SWAB).Methods: Twelve sled tests were performed for the HIII and THOR-M, and 8 matched sled tests were performed using postmortem human surrogates (PMHSs). The tests were designed to match the 2012 Toyota Camry New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) full-scale crash test. Upper and lower neck forces and moments were collected from the HIII and THOR-M load cells. Inverse dynamics was used to calculate PMHS upper neck forces and moments from acceleration data until the time of head contact. The PMHSs experienced head contact with the SWAB before appreciable neck loading occurred. Therefore, PMHS neck forces and moments were only compared to the HIII and THOR-M for the KB condition. Neck injury risks were calculated for the HIII and THOR-M and were compared to the injuries observed for the PMHSs.Results: The HIII had greater upper and lower neck shear forces than the THOR-M, whereas both surrogates had similar upper and lower neck axial forces. The HIII also experienced greater peak upper neck bending moments than the THOR-M, which experienced negligible upper neck bending moments. Before head contact, the PMHSs experienced upper neck flexion, and the HIII experienced extension. The HIII and THOR-M injury risk curves predicted less than a 50% risk of an Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 3+ injury. No AIS 3+ neck injuries were observed for the PMHS tests, but at least one AIS 2 injury was observed per condition.Conclusions: The results of this study showed that the HIII and THOR-M had different neck kinetics for these restraint conditions. In particular, the THOR-M experienced lower upper neck shear forces and bending moments. These differences are likely due to the very different neck designs of the anthropomorphic test dummies (ATDs), particularly the increased compliance of the THOR-M neck. Despite these differences, both ATDs still predicted a similar risk of AIS 3+ neck injury.