In a side impact, the occupants on both the struck, or near side, of the vehicle and the occupants on the opposite, or far side, of the vehicle are at risk of injury. Since model year 1997, all passenger cars in the U.S. have been required to comply with FMVSS No. 214, a safety standard that mandates a minimum level of side crash protection for near side occupants. No such federal safety standard exists for far side occupants. The mechanism of far side injury is believed to be quite different than the injury mechanism for near side injury. Far side impact protection may require the development of different countermeasures than those which are effective for near side impact protection. This paper evaluates the risk of side crash injury for far side occupants as a basis for developing far side impact injury countermeasures. Based on the analysis of NASS/CDS 1993-2002, this study examines the injury outcome of over 4500 car, light truck, and van occupants subjected to far side impact. The analysis was restricted to 3-point belted occupants. The paper evaluates the risk of far side impact injury as a function of struck body type, collision partner, delta-V, crash direction (PDOF), occupant compartment intrusion, and injury contact source. Injury risk is evaluated using the maximum injury severity for each occupant, by injury severity for each body region, and by Harm, a social cost measure.

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Citation: BOSTROM et al, 2002. A cost effective far side crash simulation. • This is a conference paper. Abstract -According to real-life crash data, one of the most harmful events among all side impacts is when the driverhead hits the far-side door when the car is hit from the far side. There is currently no established test method to simulate a crash where such an event is at risk of occurring. In order to assess real life injuries and develop countermeasures for far side crashes, standardized cost-effective test methods are needed. This paper presents a bending bar sled-test set-up simulating a full-scale 3 o'clock far side crash. In the full scale crash-test a deformable barrier with a speed of 65 km/h struck the passenger side of a passenger car with a BioSID in the driver seat. The intrusion of the vehicle was over when the dummy hit the far side door and therefore there was no requirement to simulate intrusion rate and extent in the sled test. The remaining part of the deformed vehicle was chopped in front of the instrument panel and behind the front seats and was then fastened transversely onto a sled. The intruded passenger side was fixed and reinforced. The mid-console, the passenger door-trim and the belt system were replaced. A BioSID was placed in the driver seat according to the full scale crash and the sled impacted the chosen set of iron bars with a resulting ∆v of 24 km/h. As a result, the kinematics, accelerations and loading of the dummy were essentially the same as in the corresponding full scale crash. In conclusion, a sled test set-up can be used to assess real life injuries and in the development of dummies and countermeasures for far side crashes of similar types as considered in the paper.

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