Vehicles sold in many countries around the globe must comply with ECE R14 or FMVSS 210 regulation in order to ensure proper function of the safety belt system when submitted to high loads. In these regulations, the procedure requests to apply high forces on the safety belts by using proper devices. All components of the system such as seats, safety belts, anchorage points and vehicle body have to resist the specified loads with no damages. The loads are applied slowly and sustained over a long period of time, characterizing a quasi-static test.
The present work was developed to understand the energy distribution among all components during seat anchorage test and determine any potential failure, including cases in which components are changed. The system was optimized considering the energy dispersed by each component and their material plastic strength limit.
The numerical computational model created was initially correlated to a physical test, and then initial simulations indicated parts kinematics, their contribution on energy dissipation and potential failures. Besides that, studies with different materials indicated the best design. Final physical tests confirmed system performance and were compared to FEA results.