SLIDE 1: Observations from US NCAP's Out of Position Side Air Bag Testing Lauren Beauchamp ACE Systems Technologies, Inc. SLIDE 2: Overview of SAB OOP in NCAP * Background * Manufacturer Submissions & Test Selection Process * Test Matrices Manufacturer Data & Testing Observations * MY 2005 Testing Plans COMMENTS: I’ll begin this with a short overview of what I am going to present. I will briefly touch on the program’s background and the subsequent procedures behind it followed by an overview of NCAP’s processes for the submission of manufacturer data and the selection of vehicles for testing. After this I will present the test matrices for MY 2003 and 2004, followed by observations from the tests and NCAP’s future plans. SLIDE 3: Background SLIDE 4: Side Airbag (SAB) Out-of-Position (OOP) Technical Working Group (TWG) * Encouraged by NHTSA Administrator in 1999 * Joint project of - Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers - Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (AIAM) - Automotive Occupant Restraints Council (AORC) - Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) COMMENTS: In the late 90s, concerns about the aggressiveness of side airbags grew as the increasing number of side impact airbags being installed in the vehicle fleet did. In 1999, at the suggestion of former NHTSA administrator Martinez, a side impact airbag out-of position technical working group formed to broach these concerns. Some members of this group included the Alliance, AIAM, AORC, and IIHS. SLIDE 5: TWG Procedures - Created occupant positions to assess injury risks * Used both child dummies, and small female side impact dummy - During development, NHTSA conducted research using these procedures * Capable of discriminating between SAB systems COMMENTS: The TWG, as I will refer to them, developed an extensive set of procedures using child and small female dummies in a variety of configurations intended to simulate out of position situations. NHTSA has conducted research using these procedures and has determined that they are able to discern between different SAB systems. SLIDES 6-7 Why SAB OOP Under NCAP? * Provide consumers with more information about vehicle SABs * Especially for children Website & Buying a Safer Car * Consumers made aware which vehicles meet TWG test positions COMMENTS: How exactly does Side Airbag Out of Position testing fit into NCAP? We feel this is good information to assist in consumer vehicle purchases, and given the fact that many of the procedures center around children the information is extremely important . In order to convey this information to the public, NCAP has been requesting data from manufacturers for NHTSA’s website and brochure. Vehicles that meet the TWG’s injury criteria are granted an “M” in both of these places, indicating that they have met the requirements. SAB OOP Under NCAP (cont’d.) - Verify some manufacturer responses via a “spot check” - Previously crashed vehicle selection * Tested under NCAP that model year (MY) * Frontal vehicles * Non-struck side of side impact vehicles - Standard SABs * Attempt to gain experience with a wide variety of SAB types - “M” vehicles chosen when possible COMMENTS: In addition to collecting this data, NCAP wanted to verify some of these manufacturer responses using actual vehicles. A natural fit for this type of testing is to use undeployed SABs from vehicles crashed during normal NCAP testing. Only vehicles with standard side airbags are used since NCAP tests with the minimal level of safety equipment available to the consumer, and every effort was made to chose vehicles that had received an “M” in order to have corresponding manufacturer data. SLIDE 8: Manufacturer Submissions & Test Selection Process SLIDE 9: Program Development 2003 - NCAP requests manufacturer data * Inconsistent information received * No mention of TWG in BSC or website 2004 - Present - Standard format - Vehicles that meet IARV’s for all TWG tests receive an “M” on website & in BSC brochure COMMENTS: In 2003, the agency attempted to collect its first year of data from manufacturers; no standard submission format made it very difficult to compare results with the accepted IARVs and even more difficult to give vehicles credit for meeting the requirements. In 2004, however, NCAP developed a standard submission format, which streamlined the process and allowed us to begin reporting “M”s with that MY. As I said previously, the actual data still remains confidential and only vehicles that “meet” are reported. Vehicles that either do not have data submitted or submit incomplete data are simply left blank. SLIDE 10: Testing Matrix - Only child dummies used * HIII-3YO produces highest injury values * HIII-6YO used with curtain SABs - Airbags only fired once * Re-install difficult & expensive * No multiple tests in vehicle COMMENTS: Because of the timing of our first round of testing, we did end up testing both 2003 and 2004 MY vehicles concurrently. To develop the matrix, we followed many of the recommendations already set forth by the TWG. Only child dummies were used during our testing, and we attempted to use the Hybrid-III3YO whenever possible since this dummy has shown in previous NHTSA testing to produce the highest injury numbers, especially when certain positions are selected. Since the small female SID-IIs was unavailable for testing, the HIII-6YO was used with every curtain airbag. The driver’s position was unused save for one test since children are not intended to be seated in that position. Every airbag was fired only once, as re-install is both difficult and expensive, especially when you are dealing with a large variety of vehicle manufacturers. SLIDE 11 : SAB OOP Test Matrices SLIDE 12 : Testing by Mount & Dummy COMMENTS: Here you see a breakdown of the airbag types we had available as well as the dummies we used with each. Note that we had the most seat-mounted bags available, and that we used the majority of these with the 3YO dummy. Here, where I indicate Seat & Roof Mounted and Door & Roof-Mounted, I am referring to two separate airbags fired at once. On the following slides I will show some photos of the test positions we selected and which injuries each was intended to capture. SLIDE 13 : 3YO Forward Facing, Seat Mount
COMMENTS: This was the most frequent test we conducted,and use the the 3YO in conjunction with a seat-mounted bag forward facing. This position is intended to interact mostly with the head and neck. SLIDE 14 : 3YO Rear Facing, Seat Mount
COMMENTS: This was the second-most frequent test we conducted, and uses the 3YO positioned with a seat-mounted bag but rear-facing. This position is intended to interact mostly with the head, neck, and thorax. SLIDE 15 : 3YO Outboard & Inboard Facing, Door Mount
COMMENTS: These are two of the three door-mounted tests we conducted. The position facing outboard intends to interact primarily with the head, neck, and thorax, and the inboard facing position with the head and neck. SLIDE 16 : 3YO Lying Down, Door Mount
COMMENT: This is the third and final door mounted position that we tested. It positions the dummy lying on the seat with its head on the armrest and is meant to interact primarily with the head and neck. SLIDE 17 : 6YO Inboard Facing, Seat & Roof Mount
COMMENT: This is the first of our 6YO positions. It is inboard facing. The position is specifically written by the TWG for this dummy in conjunction with both seat and roof-mounted bags. It faces the 6YO inboard on a booster seat and is intended to interact with the head and neck. SLIDE 18 : 6YO Inboard Facing, Door & Roof Mount
COMMENT: This is the second 6YO position. Though it is inboard facing like the previous, they are slightly different. This position is actually written by the TWG for the 3YO dummy but contains a clause that allows its use with the 6YO. It maximizes interaction with the head and neck. SLIDE 19 : 6YO Forward Facing, Seat Mount
COMMENT: This is the third and final position tested with the 6YO dummy. It is intended to represent the child forward facing on a booster seat and is supposed to interact mainly with the head and neck. SLIDE 20: Summary of Manufacturer Data & Test Results SLIDE 21: Manufacturer Data - 19 manufacturers with eligible vehicles * All participated - 254 vehicle models with SABs * 161 (63%) submitted complete information, received “M” * Remaining 37% indicated they did not meet or were incomplete COMMENTS: Excellent participation was observed during the 2004 MY manufacturer data collection. Every manufacturer that offers vehicles with SABs participated. Two-thirds of all SAB-equipped vehicles had some information submitted and nearly all of those ended up receiving an “M”. One thing to note, however, is that there is a high frequency of new models and re-designs that are submitted without data. SLIDE 22: Overview of NCAP Testing - 23 vehicles Tested - 13 granted “M’s” - Initial results indicate these tests are in good agreement with previous NHTSA research & TWG procedures - Using crashed vehicles seems promising COMMENTS: As the previous slides indicated, we conducted 23 tests in all with 2003 and 2004 MY vehicles. Due to the confusions from the 2003 submissions and vehicle availability, we were only able to mate 13 tests with corresponding manufacturer data. It should also be noted that some of the 2004 data was corresponded with 2003 vehicles whose designs carried over to the 2004 MY. SLIDE 23: Testing Observations - Further specification of TWG procedures may be necessary - Variation among vehicle interiors in the fleet - Some points subject to interpretation - Standard measurements may be needed SLIDE 24: 2005 SAB OOP Testing in NCAP SLIDE 25: 2005 MY Plans * Test 3YO with all standalone seat & door SABs * Only “M” vehicles * Perform MY 2005 testing in order to analyze data and publish findings COMMENTS: After the experience NCAP had in 2003 and 2004, we have decided to continue with the same general philosophy with some more specific points of focus. All standalone seat- and door-mounted airbags available will be tested with the 3YO. We would also like to expand our testing to include the small female SID-IIs with roof-rail SABs. SLIDE 26: 2005 Sample Testing Matrix
SLIDE 27: Questions? Thank you for your attention.