Occupant injuries in light passenger vehicles - A NASS study to enable priorities for development of injury prediction capabilities of human body models

Journal article, 2020

To prioritize how the development of mathematical human body models for injury prediction in crash safety analysis should be made, the most frequent injuries in the NASS CDS data from 2000-2015 were analyzed. The crashes were divided into seven types, from front to side. Non-minor injuries (AIS2+) were analyzed in two steps. In the first step, a grouping was made according to the AIS definition of body regions: head, face, neck, thorax, abdomen and pelvic contents, spine, upper extremities (including shoulder girdle) and lower extremities (including pelvis). In a second step, the body regions were divided in organs, parts of the spine, and parts of the extremities. The three most often injured anatomical structures of each body region were estimated for drivers and front seat passengers in each type of crash.

For drivers, an injury risk greater than 2.4 % was found for the lower extremities (pelvis) and the head (concussion) in side oblique near side impacts, for the head in frontal oblique near side impacts (concussion) and for the lower extremities (ankle joint) in frontal impacts. For passengers, an injury risk greater than 2.4 % was found for the thorax (lungs) in side near side impacts, for the head (concussion) in front oblique near side impacts, and for the thorax (sternum) and the upper extremities (wrist, hand) in frontal impacts.

Future development of human body models should focus on injuries to the head, thorax and the lower extremities. More specifically, it should focus on concussion in all impact directions and on rib and pelvic fractures in side near side impacts and in side oblique near side impacts