A Theoretical, Risk Assessment Procedure for In-Position Drivers Involved in Full-Engagement Frontal Impacts

A theoretical, mathematical, risk assessment procedure was developed to estimate the fraction of drivers that incurred head and thoracic AIS3+ injuries in full-engagement frontal crashes. The estimates were based on numerical simulations of various real-world events, including variations of crash severity, crash speed, level of restraint, and occupant size. The procedure consisted of four steps: (1) conduct the simulations of the numerous events, (2) use biomechanical equations to transform the occupant responses into AIS3+ risks for each event, (3) weight the maximum risk for each event by its real-world event frequency, and (4) sum the weighted risks. To validate the risk assessment procedure, numerous steps were taken. First, a passenger car was identified to represent average field performance. Next, field data were collected for 1985-1997 model year passenger cars involving properly belted drivers in 12 o'clock, full-engagement, non-rollover, frontal crashes that did not involve an airbag deployment. Next, the theoretical procedure was applied for the average passenger car. Finally, the results from the theoretical procedure were compared with field data. With favorable comparisons for the head and thoracic risks, the procedure was deemed to have acceptable fidelity.