Child occupant protection in vehicles

Child occupant protection in vehicles is a majorissue of concern for parents and the government. Thisbook is an effort to numerically study the injurymechanisms incurred by toddlers in a vehicle crashand further propose methods to mitigate them.Different countermeasures were investigated tomitigate the head and neck injury potential infrontal and side impact crashes. These methodsinvolved numerical studies utilizing a Hybrid III3-year-old dummy Q3/Q3s dummies and a child FEmodel. Load limiting behaviour into the upper tetherand lower LATCH anchors of the CRS in order to reducethe neck injury criteria by increasing forward headexcursion in a frontal crash was first examined.Secondly a head and neck restraining device wasdeveloped to limit the amount of neck rotation in thedummy's head. Finally numerical simulations werecompleted with rectangular and cross-shaped sectionsof rigid ISOFIX systems for better side impactprotection. In addition studies were conducted toconfine lateral movement of the dummy's head byincorporating energy absorbing foam on the side wingsin the vicinity of the contact region of the CRS.