The increase in automobile based system of transportation around the world has caused a global concern in traffic safety. Each year approximately 45,000 persons are killed in the United States due to automobile accidents and the costs account for more than $72 billion. In order to minimize the loss of life due to automobile accidents, the U.S dept. of transportation instituted a wave of legislative actions that required for the installation and use of restraint systems in automobiles. Data obtained through research and data collected from accident sites have established the fact that restraint systems are effective in minimizing the injuries and fatalities in automobile accidents.
The purpose of this research is to validate a new PC based tool for simulating occupant dynamics, obtained by integration of ATB (Occupant modeling software)and LS-DYNA (Explicit finite element software),and also to establish the effectiveness of seat belt restraint systems in reducing injuries and preventing fatalities in automobile accidents. The integrated software was used to simulate the occupant dynamics during frontal and sled tests. The motion information and occupant model were modeled using ATB and the restraint systems were modeled using LS-DYNA and the resulting data deck was provided as input to the coupled code.
Five types of restraint systems namely three-point belts, lap/shoulder belts, X belts, H belts and V belts were analyzed for their effectiveness. The body segments chosen for study were lower torso, upper torso and head. From the analysis of the output data it was found that the three-point belt, lap/shoulder belt and H belt were most effective in minimizing the acceleration and displacements of the body segments, under most test conditions. Also from the research data, it was concluded that a combination of lap belt and X belt is effective as well.