A Proposed Comprehensive Crashworthiness Rating System

The US, European and Australian New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) produce ratings of new vehicle performance based on dynamic crash tests in frontal, side and rear crashes; and vehicle handling tests. No dynamic based crashworthiness ratings exist to date in relation to rollover crashes. This study fills that gap and proposes a rating system for new vehicle performance in rollover crashes. Combined with existing rating systems, consumers will then have a complete and balanced picture of occupant protection performance. A database of more than 40 Jordan Rollover System (JRS) dynamic rollover tests assessing injury potential by roof crush and crush speed has generically validated NHTSA and IIHS statistical data as a function of FMVSS 216 quasi-static, strength to weight ratio (SWR). There is however a wide disparity between the performance of individual vehicles at the same or similar SWR between the IIHS statistical and JRS dynamic test data. That disparity has been partially investigated in a companion paper in this conference (Vehicle Roof Geometry and its Effect on Rollover Roof Performance). IIHS data indicated a 50% reduction in incapacitating and fatal injury risk with a fleet average SWR = 4. However, the use of a SWR-based rollover criterion does not provide sufficient crashworthiness fidelity essential for consumers, nor does such a criterion provide industry the opportunity to design cost-efficient rollover crashworthy vehicles based on occupant injury performance. Only a dynamic rollover testing protocol based on injury criteria would provide this information. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0515.pdf For the covering abstract see ITRD E145407.