The Development of a PC Vehicle Crashworthiness Database

During the past 20 years, computer databases containing systematically recorded descriptions of on-road vehicle accidents have become an established resource for vehicle safety engineers. Until recently, however, use of these data sources for crashworthiness analysis has been limited to those engineers who have both ready access to large computer systems and sufficient skill in computer programming methods. In the following paper, the authors describe a robust data analysis software application they have jointly developed. This program runs on a personal computer and summarizes data residing in specially-prepared subsets of the NCSS, NASS and FARS databases.