Abstract
Secondary (or passive) safety constitutes one of the most important strategies
to reduce the traffic trauma problem. The European R&D needs in this field are partially dealt
with in a large European co-operative R&D project called APROSYS (Advanced Protection
Systems) supported by the European Commission. The general objective of APROSYS is the
development and introduction of critical technologies that improve passive safety for all
European road users in all relevant accident types and accident severity´s. The most important
objectives/outputs are (1) development of new injury criteria and injury tolerance, (2)
development of new mathematical models of the human body (crash & pre-crash phase,
arbitrary body sizes), (3) development of a new world-wide harmonized crash dummy for
representation of a small female car occupant (side impact), (4) development of knowledge
and tools enabling the design, implementation and evaluation of intelligent safety systems, (5)
enhancement of virtual testing technology for design and evaluation of crash protection
methods and (6) development of test methods and advanced protection systems for injury
reduction in most relevant accident types involving car occupants, motorcyclists, pedestrians
and cyclist. The APROSYS project has 50 partners including a number of OEM´s and started
in April 2004. The total duration of APROSYS is 5 years. An important aspect in APROSYS
is the integrated approach with primary (or active) safety, the so-called area of integrated
safety. In this presentation an overview of the project will be presented as well as some of the
main achievements of APROSYS in particular concerning lateral impacts.
Keywords - Passive safety, side impacts, impact biomechanics, intelligent safety systems,
accident analysis