Abstract
Keywords - Occupant protection, wheelchair users transportation, restraint systems performance, experimental validation, standards development.
Abstract - Occupant protection has represented during last decades a first goal in transport safety issues in relation with non-disabled travelers. Nevertheless there is still too much work to do about the safe transport of wheelchair users in vehicles. The present paper shows the results of the experimental validation on an integral safety device able to restraint safely both the wheelchair and their occupant, in case of a sudden collision or accident in transport vehicles. This restraint system was developed at the Automobile Laboratory of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) under the sponsorship of the Spanish National Social Affairs Institute (IMSERSO). The docking system called SATRUS provides an easy and effective anchorage for both the wheelchair and their occupant within the motor vehicle and can be used for the transport of different type of disabled users in different type of vehicles (urban buses, minibuses, vans, long-distance buses, ...), and transport systems (road transport, trams, subway, railways, ). It is based on a universal design for their use with different types of wheelchairs (manual, electrical, scooters, ..) with the aim of an universal interface device (UID) with three-degrees of freedom for their regulation in the wheelchair structure, and different materials that can contribute to the wheelchair impact movement behavior with different stiffness. The experimental validation process consisted of computer modeling and simulations studies, development of static tests for the components structural design, and dynamic analysis based on real crash and sled test analysis developed in the ISO 10542-1 standard. The research results will be applied to National (AENOR CTN26/SC4 and
CTN153/SC2/GT2) and International (ISO/TC22/SC26 and ISO/TC173/SC1/WG6) standards committees, for the development of safer wheelchair tiedowns and occupant restraint systems, in which the author is being collaborating during last years as Spanish delegate.