NCAC's crash related injury and biomechanics research focuses on reducing transportation-related injuries and fatalities. Over the years, the NCAC's research has contributed to enhancing occupant protection in vehicle crashes.
The Vehicle Safety and Biomechanics research group focuses primarily on understanding injury risk by working on the most current and relevant topics in automotive safety. The team leverages the many resources available at the NCAC as well as from FHWA, NHTSA and other partners to analyze and solve complex problems associated with pre-crash, crash and post-crash events.
Pre-crash analysis involves studying vehicle kinematics prior to a crash and determining how vehicle maneuvers affect an occupant's placement in the vehicle. By combining vehicle dynamics simulation with crash investigation and occupant biomechanics modeling, NCAC engineers learn more about the pre-crash factors that influence injury risk.
Understanding the crash event itself is critical for understanding the injuries that may result from the crash. NCAC researchers use detailed computer models of occupants, vehicle interiors and occupant restraint systems to determine the associated injury risks in a number of crash scenarios. To validate their findings, the researchers rely heavily on other vehicle modeling and crash testing expertise within the NCAC.
The NCAC also has formed several partnerships that have improved the understanding of the post-crash aspects of injury and trauma. For example, the NCAC provides engineering analysis to support the technical and medical conclusions of the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN). By investigating crashes and analyzing crash data and statistics, NCAC and CIREN researchers have developed better medical triage criteria, improving emergency response.
The Vehicle Safety and Biomechanics research encompasses a wide range of topics, including:
- child safety and child restraint systems
- rollover injury risk
- vehicle to vehicle compatibility
- airbag system performance
- occupant injury tolerances
- blunt traumatic aortic injury (TAI)
- side-impact injury patterns
- crash investigation variables
- automotive fire safety.
NCAC's tools and studies have improved by the computer-generated human biomechanics models and the anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs, or “crash test dummies”) used in simulations and full-scale crash tests.
