Investigation of Hybrid III Fifth Female Dummy Use in the Caravan Air Bag Test Environment.

摘要

Review of a proposed SAE paper documenting LTV aggressivity tests conducted by NHTSA brought to light some questions regarding the Caravan passenger-side airbag and/or the biofidelity of the head-neck junction of the small female Hybrid III dummy. An oblique crash test (reference NHTSA Crash Test Datbase no. 2915) in which a 97 Caravan impacted into a 97 Honda Accord resulted in an unusually high neck response for the passenger occupant of the Caravan - a small female dummy belted and seated normally in a full forward seating position (i.e. not in an OOP condition). Review of the high speed film of the event revealed that the cushion deployed under the chin of the dummy and as the cushion continued to pressurize, the head was projected upwards, extending the neck to an extreme degree. The sole purpose of the testing conducted by VRTC was to determine whether or not the high neck loading seen in NHTSA crash test no. 2915 was an artifact of the dummy, and if so, to determine what changes were needed to make the dummy more humanlike.