Abstract
Child restraints system (CRS) is helpful to protect the child occupant during a crash. A number of child restraint systems are commercially available. OEMs evaluate the performance of these CRS on vehicle level and recommend most suitable CRS for their cars. To evaluate the CRS performance on vehicle level Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) simulations are extensively used during early phase of vehicle development. Correlated CRS finite element models are required for the vehicle level simulations to correctly represent the child dummy kinematics and dummy injuries during crash. The development of correlated CRS model is very complex as it involves material characterization for plastics, foams, fabrics and validation with static and dynamic load cases. The process of development of a correlated CAE model of CRS is explained in this paper. The major steps involved in this process are given in detail. For building the CRS model complete teardown activity of seat assembly was carried out. Digitalization of child seat was done to create 3D Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) data. Mesh and finite element model was built with appropriate section and material data. Material characterization tests were carried out for different seat child parts viz plastic, foam, fabric for accurate representation. Component level static loading test was done on child seat assembly and validated with test data to ensure correct stiffness representation. A dynamic sled test was carried out to correlate the child dummy kinematics and child injury performance. The work done in the material characterization and the correlation studies are presented in this paper.