Accident data show that the injury risks to children seated in child restraint systems (CRSs) are higher in side collisions than any other type of collision. To investigate child injury in the CRS in a side impact, it is necessary to understand the occupant responses in car-to-car crash tests. In this research, a series of full car side impact tests based on the ECE R95 test procedure was conducted. In the vehicle's struck-side rear seat location, a Q3s three-year-old child dummy was seated in a forward facing (FF) CRS, and a CRABI six-month-old (6MO) infant dummy was seated in a rear facing (RF) CRS and also was placed in car-bed restraint. In the non-struck side rear seat location, the RF CRSs also were installed. In addition to testing the CRSs installed by a seatbelt, an ISOFIX FF CRS and an ISOFIX RF CRS were tested. For the evaluations, occupant kinematic behavior and injury measures were compared.
In all tests, the dummy heads were contained within the CRS shell during the entire impact event. In both the struck side FF CRS and RF CRS; the HICs were small, even though the dummy heads made indirect contact with the door beltline through the CRS side wing in these struck side CRSs. The dummy chest was loaded by an intruding door and the resulting chest deflection of the Q3s child dummy in the FF CRS was comparable with the injury assessment reference value. In the non-struck side, the loading of the CRABI 6MO seated in the CRS was substantially small. In the FF and RF ISOFIX CRS with a top tether, the acceleration of some body regions of the dummy could be high because the ISOFIX CRS moved from the initial phase of the impact and contacted the dummy at a high velocity. However, the CRS and the dummy displacement were small, which is an advantage of the ISOFIX CRS because occupant excursion could be a major source of injuries in the real-world accidents.
