Main Focus
The world’s smartest crash test dummy
improves vehicle safety
by the WorldSID Task Group 1
I
n the field of automotive safety testing, the ISO World Side Impact Dummy (WorldSID) Task Group continues
to document and test the WorldSID in
vehicle and laboratory impacts. Designed
to provide the automotive industry with
a usable and advanced biofidelic dummy, the WorldSID continues to meet
design goals and expectations as the
most advanced and most human dummy available today.
Superior biofidelity
It could be said that cars are
designed to protect crash dummies and
not humans, because many of the design
decisions related to safety are based on
tests with crash dummies. To establish
a link between the crash dummy and the
1
Risa Scherer, FORD Motor Company, Chair
of the America´s Advisory Group, Akihiko
Akiyama, Honda, Chair of the Asia Pacific
Advisory Group, Edmund Hautmann, BMW
Group, Chair of the European Advisory Group,
with Ken Wiley, DYNAMIC RESEARCH INC.,
WorldSID Phase II Project Manager.
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ISO Focus May 2005
human occupant it simulates, a primary
design requirement for a crash test dummy
is the ability to predict the probability of
human injuries in vehicle impacts.
Human injuries however, are complex events dependent upon a variety of
parameters. Head injuries can be caused
by acceleration, while chest injuries tend
to depend upon rib deflections and leg
bone fractures are related to forces and
moments. In order to provide engineers
with accurate injury predictive data, a
dummy must be biofidelic ; i.e. it must
duplicate the mass, stiffness, and deflec-
On the road again…
tion characteristics of the human body.
In this respect, the WorldSID has proven itself to be superior to other dummies
in use today.
The WorldSID overall biofidelity
performance rating is 7.6 (on a 10 point
maximum scale) when evaluated according to ISO/TR 9790, Road vehicles –
Anthropomorphic side impact dummy –
Lateral impact response requirements to
assess the biofidelity of the dummy (see
also ISO Focus, July/August 2004 issue).
In comparison, other currently used side
impact dummies, USDOT-SID, EuroSID1, ES-2re, and ES-2 have ratings of 2.3,
4.4, 4.3, and 4.6 respectively.
In addition to its superior overall biofidelity rating, the WorldSID has
“ fair ” to “ good ” ISO biofidelity classifications in each of the six evaluated body
regions including the head, neck, shoulder, thorax, abdomen, and pelvis. Such
localized biofidelity is equally as important as the overall rating. For example, a
dummy such as the USDOT-SID, which
is not able to predict abdomen injuries,
or the ES-2 which has poor abdominal
biofidelity, doesn’t provide the engineer
with the information needed to properly locate arm rests, for example. Recent
test results presented to the Global Road
Safety Partnership (GRSP) in December
2004 showed that in identical tests, the
WorldSID abdomen, with good biofidelity and deflection measurement capabilities, was able to identify injury potential not identified by the ES-2 and ES2re dummies.
Other Transport Canada testing has
shown the importance of the WorldSID
increased independent torso rib movements, which result in increased sensitivity to localized loading occurring, for
example, in impacts between the dummy
and vehicle arm rests and air bags. This
increased local sensitivity provides the
test engineer with “ cause and affect ”
feedback on small design changes that
can lead to improved vehicle safety.
Advances in sensors and
data recording
Even a perfectly biofidelic dummy
is of little value if it does not provide the
engineer with the required quantitative
measures of accelerations, deflections,
forces, and moments experienced in various dummy body regions. The WorldSID takes advantage of recent advances
in electronic miniaturization and micro
circuitry to provide the test engineer
with a wide range of sensors and data
recording instrumentation, which can
be packaged internally in the dummy.
This can be equipped with more than
200 sensors and recording channels, enabling the engineer to study nearly every
aspect of the interaction between dummy and vehicle.
The history of frontal impact testing has shown that as vehicle designs
are modified to reduce fatalities, injury
studies expand to include non-life threatening but potentially crippling injuries.
For example, early
frontal crash testing only focused on
head and chest injuries and instrumentation. With advanced seat belts, air bags
and increased vehicle crush zones, these
types of injuries have been reduced and
engineers have expanded their safety studies to include the reduction of ankle and
lower leg injuries.
This progression of expanding
safety research to include additional body
regions and locations requires expand-
A dummy must be biofidelic ; i.e. it
must duplicate the mass, stiffness, and
deflection characteristics of the human
body. In this respect, the WorldSID
has proven itself to be superior to other dummies in use today.
ISO Focus May 2005
25
Main Focus
Practical and userfriendly
No matter how advanced and
needed a tool is, it must be available,
repeatable, durable, and compatible with
practical day-to-day use. The WorldSID
meets all such requirements. Designed
by engineers and scientists with years of
experience in the field of crash testing,
the WorldSID underwent three design,
test, and redesign cycles. This process
involved individuals from 45 organizations in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the
Americas, and more than 1 000 whole
dummy tests.
Each redesign incorporated hundreds of suggested changes from engineers aimed at improving not only the
26
ISO Focus May 2005
dummy biofidelity but also such practical details as durability, repeatability and handling. The resulting production design meets all of the initial
design requirements specified by the
Task Group. Evaluations of WorldSID
repeatability and reproducibility show
coefficients of variation of about 5 %
and 7 % respectively. In addition, users
report excellent “ user friendliness ” of
the dummy and good durability during
both lab and vehicle testing.
Shifting from “ testing of
the dummy ” to “ testing
with the dummy ”
Regarding dummy availability,
the production design has been finalized, and all fabrication details, specifications, and engineering drawings are
included in ISO/DIS 15830, Road vehicles – Design and performance specifications for the WorldSID 50th percentile male side-impact dummy, which is
currently being balloted by ISO/TC 22,
© P. Granier, ISO
ed instrumentation. The WorldSID Task
Group, having anticipated this trend, has
planned ahead and included a vast array
of distributed instrumentation, literally
covering the dummy from head to foot,
to facilitate such future studies.
© ISO
Road vehicles. Initial production dummies
have been fabricated and are being used
in test labs around the world. Additional production dummies may be ordered
from either of two independent dummy
manufacturers.
The WorldSID dummy is the most
advanced biofidelic and injury predictive crash dummy available to the automotive industry. Now, with the completion of the WorldSID production design
and initial fabrication of production dummies, test facilities around the world continue to increase their experience with
the dummy as the emphasis shifts from
“ testing of the dummy ” to “ testing with
the dummy ”.
The team behind WorldSID with their “ offspring ” : (from left to right) Jerry Wang,
Member of Design Team, Senior Projects
Manager, First Technology Safety Systems,
USA ; Ken Wiley, Principal Engineer,
Programme Manager, Dynamic Research Inc.,
USA ; Suzanne Tylko, Vehicle Safety Engineer,
Transport, Canada, Secretary of Americas
region, Canada ; John Zellner, Technical
Director, Programme Manager Dynamic
Research Inc., USA ; Risa Scherer, Chair of the
America´s Advisory Group, Anthropomorphic
Test Device Technical Specialist, Ford Motor
Co., USA ; Edmund Hartmann, Chair of the
WorldSID European Advisory Group, Vehicle
Development Passive Safety Testing, BMW
Group, Germany ; Akihiko Akiyama, Assistant
chief Engineer, Honda R and D, Japan ; Klaus
Bortenschlager, Managing Director, PDB,
Germany ; Craig Morgan, Vice-Chair, Denton
Inc., USA, Member of Design Team.