Crashworthiness

This course is video based and was consists of edited video footage of a three day session on crashworthiness held at Aston University in April 2003. It consists of 15.5 hours of video material split into 28 seperate video presentations (mostly using the Autotrain Combined Video Presentation format) of varying length.

The topics covered are as follows :

• Historical Overview of Crashworthiness testing
• Injury Scaling and the Abbreviated Injury Scale
• Crash test dummies
• Biomechanics of all the major parts of the body.
• Basic anatomy
• Typical injuries
• Mechanisms and injuries
• Parameters and tolerance values
• Crashes. Types, frequency, severities, restraint use, population issues.
• Frontal Impacts. Kinematics of the restrained and unrestrained passenger, patterns of injury and key design issues.
• Side and Rear impacts. Kinematics, struck and non-struck sides, patterns of injury and key design issues.
• Work of the Accident Research Unit, University of Birmingham.
• Compatibility, car to car to truck and front to side, design issues.
• Advanced Restraints
• Modelling of cars and occupants in crash situations
• Rollovers, Kinematics of the restrained and unrestrained passenger, injuries and key design issues.
• Pedestrian protection
• Disability scaling
• NCAP testing and consumer assesment
• Product liability

These presentations are given by the following industry experts : Dr Murray Mackay, Elain Wodzin, Hugo Mellander, Professor Clive Neal-Sturgess, Barbara Dhanjal and Bhavik Shah.