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A Modified Steering Wheel to Reduce Facial Injuries and An Associated Test Procedure
Technical Paper
856052
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
Frontal and oblique-frontal impacts are responsible for about
two- thirds of car occupant injuries. In those impacts, the
steering assembly has been identified as one of the components most
frequently hit by the driver. An in-depth study of accident injury
data for the Marina car was used to identify the mode of injury.
Angled barrier impact test using an OPAT dummy as driver
successfully reproduced the mode of injury.
With a 90 percent plus seatbelt wearing rate in the United
Kingdom, it is desirable to develop a simple test procedure to
reduce the aggressiveness of the steering wheel to the face and
possibly to alleviate the deceleration pulse of the brain. A
steering wheel test, based on the standard interior impact test,
has been developed and evaluated on seven production car wheels and
on a newly designed safer steering wheel. All the production wheels
failed the test, but the safety steering wheel passed the suggested
test level.