Study of Steering Assemblies for Evaluation and Rating of Safety Performance

A series of static component and dynamic systems tests were conducted on a number of production steering assemblies. Based on the results of these tests the protective capability, afforded the unrestrained driver, for each steering asembly was evaluated and rated against the other production steering assemblies. The Hybrid III dummy was used in the dynamic tests and chest deflection was one of the response criteria used to assess performance. In addition to recording the standard performance criteria on the Hybrid III during the dynamic testing new techniques were developed for measuring chest contact area and abdomen penetration.