CAE-Companion-2018-2019

Safety

Whiplash Testing and Evaluation in Rear Impacts

Course Description In real-world accidents, distortions of the cervical spine or so-called whiplash injuries following a rear impact are among the most expensive injuries for the insurance industry. About 75 % of all injury costs of the insurers are caused by whiplash injuries in highly-motorized countries. About 80 % of all injuries in a rear impact are whiplash-injuries. This is why this type of injury – even though it is neither very serious nor lethal – has reached a high priority in the endeavors to develop test procedures and assessment criteria which help in designing constructive measures in the car in order to avoid this type of injury. As an introduction, this seminar refers to the different acci- dent data for whiplash injuries, which offer many realizations but no consistent pattern with regard to the biomechanical injury mechanisms. However, some organizations – mainly from the field of consumer information and insurance insti- tutes – are working on the development of test procedures and assessment criteria. The most active ones are Thatcham (UK) and IIHS (USA) which are united in the group IIWPG (International InsuranceWhiplash Prevention Group), SNRA and Folksam (Sweden) and the German ADAC. In 2008 Euro NCAP has introduced a whiplash test procedure as part of its rating system. In 2014 an additional assessment for the rear seats was added. The Euro NCAP assessment will be explained in detail in the seminar. Furthermore, the EEVC working group 20 is active as a consulting authority concern- ing whiplash injuries for the legislation in Europe. The new Global Technical Regulation No. 7 (Head Restraints) is unsatisfactory from the European point of view. Therefore the United Nations work on a second phase of this regulation. The focus of this work is on improving the BioRID dummy and on the definition of so called Seat Performance Criteria. All discussions about the assessment of whiplash injuries within the framework of consumer information have in common, that the protection effect in a rear-end impact

needs to be examined in an isolated vehicle seat by means of a sled test using a generic acceleration pulse. It turns out to be problematic, however, that presently there is no trau- mato-mechanical explanation of the phenomenon “whiplash injury” and that all the currently discussed dummy-criteria with the respective limit values follow a so-called “black-box approach”. Experts try to correlate the measured dummy cri- teria with the findings from accident data and to thus derive limit values. In this context the available dummy-technology with the different measuring devices and criteria, as well as the proposed limit values are going to be presented. In the last part of the seminar different seat design concepts (energy-absorbing, respectively geometry-improving), sub-di- vided into active and passive systems will be introduced, and their advantages and disadvantages will be discussed. Who should attend? The seminar addresses development engineers who are new in the field of rear impacts or who have already got some experience in the field of safety, as well as developers of sub- assemblies which have to fulfill a crash-relevant function. It is furthermore especially interesting for project managers and managers who deal with the topic of rear-end impacts and who would like to obtain a better knowledge of this subject in order to use it for an improvement of procedures. Course Contents „ „ Introduction into the characteristics of a rear-end impact „ „ Overview of the most important whiplash requirements „ „ Injury criteria „ „ Dummy-technology for rear impacts „ „ Presentation of the Euro NCAP and FMVSS 202-dynamic test procedures „ „ Outlook on possible harmonization-tendencies „ „ Explanation of the possible design measures in car seats

Thomas Frank (LEAR Corporation GmbH) joined the passive safety department of LEAR Corpora- tion in 2002 after graduating from the Technical University of Berlin in physical engineering sciences. At LEAR Thomas Frank initially worked as a test engineer in crash testing, later he developed head rests. Today he is expert for low speed rear impact safety. In his position he guides the seat development with respect to meet whiplash protection requirements in regulations and consumer tests.

Instructor

DATE

COURSE ID

VENUE

DURATION PRICE

LANGUAGE

21.09.2018

50/3114

Alzenau

1 Day

740,- EUR till 24.08.2018, thereafter 890,- EUR

Facts

112