Abstract
The complete evaluation of the side vehicle structure and the occupant protection is only
possible by the full scale side impact crash test. But, auto part manufacturers such as door
trim makers can not conduct the test especially when the vehicle is under developing process.
With the proposed design procedure for the door trim by a simple impact test method was
demonstrated to evaluate the abdominal injury. In addition to the impact tests, sled test and
FEM simulation were also used to analyze the influences of various factors. This paper
describes a study that was conducted to determine sensitivity of several design factors for
reducing abdominal injury values using the matrix of orthogonal array method. The design
factors that may have major effect on side impacts were selected and Ls orthogonal array was
set up for analysis. A DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) process for design of door trim armrest
was developed to find the optimal design parameters.
In conclusion, it was found that the simple impact test with target absorbing energy criteria
was a useful and efficient method to study for occupant protection. With this test method and
FEM simulations, it was also found that one of the ways which has possibility to predict and
to reduce abdominal injury index of dummy is to disperse the impacting force by armrest of
the door trim. Therefore, DFSS method was found to be a useful tool, although its usage may
be limited in crash analysis, for predicting the effect of various design factors on the door trim
structure. From this analysis of DFSS, the peak force could be reduced up to 30% by changes
of design parameters.
Keywords - Side impact, Abdomen, Euro-SID dummy, Impactor, Sled test, DFSS, Target absorbing
impact energy, Orthogonal array