A preliminary study of occupant kinematics and injuries in a frontal crash with occupant face-to-face scenario

Intelligent cockpits often feature seats that can be adjusted in multiple ways to suit different needs. This includes not only traditional adjustments (such as recline, lumbar support, and headrest positioning) but also more advanced configurations where seats can rotate, slide, or fold flat to create different cabin layouts. This paper presents a preliminary study of occupant face-to-face scenario in a 50 km/h frontal impact. Injuries of three cases, including rear-facing 50th occupant, forward facing 50th occupant and interaction between rear facing and forward facing occupants, were carried out. The injury of the occupants in vehicle are different depending on the occupant seating positions. For rear facing occupant, the primary injury is dependent on seat design while for the forward facing occupant, the primary injury caused by a larger space between two occupants, in which there is without reaction surface to support (or slow) occupant itself. The injury caused by interaction of two occupants was not found. In this study, both flexible and rigid seats are used to compare the differences of occupant injuries for rear-facing occupant. HBM models (THUMS, SHBM and GHBMC) are used to study the injury of rear-facing occupant. HIII dummy is also employed in forward-facing occupant studies in addition to HBM models. Furthermore, occupant injury related to seat in vehicle environment, including rear facing seat relationship to IP, to front seat, to middle row seat, also discussed