Center Airbag Out-of-Position: recommended test procedures and biomechanical analysis for evaluating occupant injury risk.

Airbags are restraining safety devices aimed at reducing both mortality and morbidity from crashes, but their activation may sometimes produce an increase in the number of injuries when the vehicle occupant is very close to the airbag or in direct contact when it deploys. In fact, when this occurs, the force resulting from the energy released by the airbag can be stronger than claimed by the manufacturer. This kind of force is very important when the vehicle occupants are in different positions from those considered normal, called out-of-positions. For the Side Airbag and Curtain Airbag, there is already a protocol in place recommending procedures for assessing out-of-position injury risks through injury criteria. For the Center Airbag there is not such a protocol. Therefore, in this paper, the implementation of the protocol is described based on ‘Recommended procedures for evaluating occupant injury risk from deploying side airbags’ prepared by Technical Working Group. This protocol analyses the test devices (dummies), instrumentation, test procedures, and performance guidelines that should be used for evaluating the interaction injury risk. The risk curves, derived from instrumentation present on the dummies, corre??spond to a statistical model of biomechanical data in order to predict injury. The subsequent biomechanical analysis of these curve allows to determine the suitability of the airbag in question and, if it is within the limits imposed by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, proceed with further testing for approval.