An investigation into the head and neck injury potential of three-year-old children in forward and rearward facing child safety seats

This research focused on the injury potential of children in forward and rearward facing configurations involved in frontal collisions. Experimental sled tests were completed following the requirements of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 213 using a Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy in a forward facing configuration restrained in a child restraint system (CRS) that employed a five-point seat belt. The Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy was equipped with three uniaxial accelerometers arranged in mutually perpendicular directions in the head and chest. Experimental sled tests were also completed for a rearward facing configuration, but the results were not applicable due to excessive rotation of the child safety seat toward the front of the sled which would not typically occur in a frontal crash. In addition the set-up did not allow for proper placement of the child dummy's legs and did not portray a realistic configuration of the child in the child safety seat. Using Finite Element Model Builder (FEMB) software and EASi-Crash Dyna, a numerical model employing a subset of the apparatus used in the forward facing experimental sled test was developed and numerically simulated using LS-DYNA. To verify the numerical simulations, the head and chest accelerations were compared to the experimental observations and it was found that there was a reasonable engineering correlation between the data. Further numerical simulations were completed to study the possible benefits of facing a 3-year-old child in a rearward facing configuration during a frontal crash. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...