Abstract
Keywords:vehicle, accident, rollover, parameter, interdependency
Rollover accidents are complex crash incidents and reflect more than other types of crash the interaction between the driver, the road, the vehicle and the prevalent environmental factors. A rollover is a crash in which a vehicle rotates at least one-quarter turn, regardless of whether the vehicle ends up lying on its side, its roof, or even returning to an upright position on all four wheels. In order to protect the vehicle occupants from hard contact with vehicle body parts or external objects, protection devices such as side or curtain airbags have been introduced by the automotive industry.
This study illustrates the interdependency between the occupants of a vehicle, the environment and the protection devices in a rollover crash scenario. The most important parameters regarding injury causation have been found and the relationship between them investigated.
During a contact between the occupant and the protection concept the occupant is subjected to local, time-variable loads. If the protection concept reduces the load to the level of the injury value limits or below, it represents an effective protection device. If the loads are above the injury limits, the protection device reaches its own physical limits. If the transgression of the load limits is induced by the protection system itself, the protection device contributes to the source of injuries. As a consequence, the different parameters of the protection concept need to be revised.
In this study, the American accident analysis systems National Automotive Sampling System - General Estimates System (NASS-GES) from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been used to evaluate the nature of various vehicle rollover accidents and to understand the consequences of the interaction between the three main parameters, these being the occupant, the environment and the passive safety system.