*4.2.1 Kinematics*

**Figure 11** compares the kinematics snapshots at 115 msec of the 50th%ile male occupant at the side facing seat responding to the US NCAP rigid barrier frontal crash

**Figure 8.**

*Simulation models for the four US regulatory vehicle side crash tests.*

*Accidental Injury Analysis and Protection for Automated Vehicles DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105155*

#### **Figure 9.**

*The vehicle frontal and oblique crash pulses from the four US regulatory vehicle crash tests used for the occupant simulations in this study.*

(FC-RB), the IIHS 40% offset deformable barrier (FC-ODB) frontal crash, the IIHS small overlap rigid barrier frontal crash (FC-SOB), and the rear impact (RC-RL), respectively. In all the three frontal and oblique crashes, the occupant impacted to the 1st row seat back on his right, while in the rear impact he moved laterally to his left.

**Figure 12** compares the kinematics of the side-facing seated 50th%ile male occupant at 150 msec responding to the US NCAP moving deformable barrier near side crash (NS-DB), the IIHS moving deformable high barrier near side crash (NS-IDB), the US NCAP moving deformable barrier far side crash (FS-DB), and the IIHS moving deformable high barrier far side crash (FS-IDB), respectively. Under the near side crashes, the occupant firstly moved back toward the seatback during about 80 msec and then bounced forward driven by the seatback force. Under the farside crashes, the

#### **Figure 10.**

*The crash cases and interior seating configuration of a conceptual automated minivan investigated in this study.*

#### **Figure 11.**

*The kinematics snapshots at 115 msec of the 50th%ile male occupant at the side facing seat under various vehicle frontal and rear crashes—FC-RB (upper left), FC-ODB (lower right), FC-IDB (upper right), and RC-RL (lower right).*

occupant moved forward all the way from the beginning. His lower legs impacted the side of the 2nd row LHS seat that was pushed toward the occupant by the deforming LHS side door structures of the vehicle.

#### *4.2.2 Injury analysis*

**Table 4** summarizes the injury measures for the body regions of head, neck, Thorax, abdomen, pelvis, and lower extremities, outputted from the belted GHBMC M50-OS v1.8.4 (modified) model for the eight crash cases.

With the body injury risk functions listed **Table 2**, we calculated the body region injury risks and the Full Body Injury Index FBII of the 50th%ile mid-size male occupant for each crash case.

*Accidental Injury Analysis and Protection for Automated Vehicles DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105155*

**Figure 12.**

*The kinematics snapshots at 150 msec of the 50th%ile male occupant at the side facing seat under various vehicle side crashes—NS-DB (upper left), NS-IDB (lower right), FS-DB (upper right), and FS-IDB (lower right).*


#### **Table 4.**

*The injury measures for the body regions of head, neck, thorax, abdomen, pelvis, and lower extremities from the GHBMC M50-OS v1.8.4 (modified) model restrained with the 3 pt. seatbelt for the eight crash cases.*

**Figure 13** (Left plot) compares all the injury risks of the head (P\_head), chest (P\_chest), abdomen (P\_abd), pelvis (P\_pelvis), tibial (P\_tibial), ankle (P\_ankle) among the eight crash cases. It shows that the chest injury risks were relatively high across all the cases. Higher head and pelvis injury risks were observed at all the frontal crash cases. Higher lower extremity injury risks were seen at the far side crash cases.

**Figure 13** (Right plot) compares the Full Body Injury Index FBII among the eight crash cases. It is indicated that the US NCAP rigid barrier frontal crash (FCRB) caused the highest FBII value while the US NCAP moving deformable barrier near side crash (NS-DB) had the lowest FBII value.

#### *4.2.3 Discussion*

**Table 5** summarizes the estimated vulnerable body regions and injury severity for the side-facing seated 50th%ile male occupant responding to the frontal/oblique, rear, near side and farside side crashes, respectively. It is noted that the impacts to the occupant were completely different from the forward-facing seated due to the sidefacing seat orientation. The occupant experienced the side impacts from the frontal and oblique vehicle crashes and the frontal impacts from the farside crashes. Severe body injuries for the side-facing occupant were caused the most by the frontal and oblique crashes, followed by the farside crashes, rear crashes, and near-side crashes.

#### **Figure 13.**

*(left plot): The 50th%ile male occupant body region injury risks of the head (P\_head), chest (P\_chest), abdomen (P\_abd), pelvis (P\_pelvis), tibial (P\_tibial), ankle (P\_ankle), and (right plot): The full body injury index FBII among the eight crash cases.*


#### **Table 5.**

*The estimated vulnerable body regions and injury severity for the side-facing seated 50th%ile male occupant responding to various vehicle crashes.*

The severe body injuries for the side-facing seated occupant restrained with 3 point seatbelt from the frontal, oblique and rear crashes indicated ineffectiveness of the seatbelt restraint for such crash scenarios.

For the farside crashes, the seatbelt performed better for the frontal impacted experienced occupant. The high injury risk value of the lower extremity was caused by contact of the legs to the 2nd row seat.

The near-side crashes caused less severe injuries to the rear impacted experienced occupant possibly due to mitigation of the impact energy by the seat back and the vehicle side structures.

The estimated outcomes of the body injury risks were limited to one case vehicle interior configuration. Further investigation on different vehicle crashes and seating configurations should be performed.
