Safety of a Child, in a Vehicle Side Crash, with Three Restraint Systems

Abstract

Child safety is the main concern for parents, while driving a vehicle, with a child on board. Appropriate child restraint systems (CRSs) optimistically lessen injuries and reduce the mortality rate of children in accidents. This study compares child safety in a near-side crash with three different restraint systems: safety vest, and three- and four-point seatbelts. A six-year-old child is modelled by scaling a reference human model. The child is in an upright posture and located on a simplified child seat. The child seat itself is affixed to a deformable car seat that is made from fully deformable foam. The foam is validated to be used in crash analysis. The interior of the child seat is also covered by a layer of this foam. Seatbelts and the safety vest are made from standard seatbelt membrane material. Simulations were done for the near-side crash by a sled test regarding the side barrier crash pulse in the virtual performance solution (VPS). Outcomes indicate that a four-point seatbelt and safety vest, can provide relatively safer conditions for a child, in a near-side crash, than a three-point seatbelt, from a thorax injury point of view. This is the direct consequence of distributing the load over the thorax. Using a four-point seatbelt puts delay in the thorax injury and helps to use other safety means to reduce injuries on the body. The assumed geometry of the safety vest is not appropriate and causes the model’s pelvis injury grade to be worse than that seen with three-point seatbelts.