Development of Testing and Evaluation of Child Restraint Systems and Child Test Dummies by NHTSA

摘要

An extensive program was undertaken by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to establish appropriate means and procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of child restraints in automobile crashes. This was an extension of an earlier program which involved testing of commercially available three and six year old child test dummies. A three year old child test dummy (produced by Alderson Research Laboratory) was found to provide acceptable acceleration and kinematic measurements and this model was further tested and evaluated. Static and dynamic tests were developed to calibrate the test dummy, which would assure the uniformity of construction from sample to sample, and produce the uniformity of measurements in crash testing. The calibration involved the measurement of head and chest accelerations and the bending characteristics of the neck and lumbar section. Tests were conducted with four dummies at two laboratories to account for any differences in the measured responses due to differences in the dummies, in testing procedures, in equipment, and in data reduction. Four calibrated dummies were further evaluated in simulated frontal crashes in two representative child restraint-automobile crash environments to determine the repeatability of their responses obtained in replicated testing. Six repeated tests were made with each dummy at 30 mph impacts with the "GM Love Seat" representing the belt type and with the Chrysler "Mopar" seat representing the shield type restraint. Also, three repeated tests were made with each dummy at 20 mph with the "GM Love Seat" top tether straps disconnected. All four dummies gave repeat able measurements of the head and chest accelerations and head and knee excursions and were sufficiently sensitive to detect differences in the crash environments. Twenty-three different child restraint systems were tested in 30 mph and 20 mph simulated crashes with infant and three year old child test dummies. The results indicate that a number of child restraint systems failed structurally and that the dynamic testing could uncover these and other performance problems.