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A new test method for the assessment of neck injuries in rear-end collisions
Technical Paper
2001-06-0176
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
Whiplash injuries due to rear-end car collisions is one of the
most aggravating traffic safety problems with serious implications
for the European society. Yearly more than a million European
citizens suffer neck injuries from rear-end car collisions,
implying tremendous societal costs. Therefore the European
Community has sponsored the European Whiplash project. The
objective of this paper is to present a general overview of this
project.
Accident studies show the relevance of rear-impact- related
whiplash injuries and representative rear impact conditions in
which whiplash is likely to occur. For the development of a Rear
Impact Dummy (RID) typical human responses to rear impact are
needed and were obtained with human volunteer and Post Mortem Human
Subject tests at low speeds. Accident reconstructions were
performed in order to derive injury thresholds for the dummy.
Combining information from the accident investigations and the
reconstructions, test methods for the evaluation of seats and head
restraints were developed. Finally the dummy and the test methods
were used to evaluate seats available on the European market.