SENSITIVITY OF OCCUPANT RESPONSE SUBJECT TO PRESCRIBED CORRIDORS FOR IMPACT TESTING

A technology to study the sensitivity of impact responses to prescribe d test conditions is presented. Motor vehicle impacts are used to illu strate the principles of this sensitivity technology. Impact condition s are regulated by specifying either a corridor for the acceleration t ime history or other test parameters such as velocity change, static c rush distance, and pulse duration. By combining a time domain constrai ned optimization method and a multirigid body dynamics simulator, the upper and lower bounds of occupant responses subject to the regulated corridors were obtained. It was found that these prescribed corridors may be either so wide as to allow extreme variations in occupant respo nse or so narrow that they are physically unrealizable in the laborato ry test environment. A new corridor based on specifications for the te st parameters of acceleration, velocity, crush distance, and duration for frontal vehicle impacts is given. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.