WHIPLASH I - Reduction of neck-injuries and their societal costs in rear and collisions

Neck injuries in car collisions constitute a serious problem with tremendous implications for the individual as well as for the society as a whole. The costs to the European society are estimated to be between 5 and 10 billion ECU per year. Neck injuries particularly occur in rear end collisions and for this accident type no test methods or passive vehicle safety regulations for neck injury reduction are available. This is mainly a consequence of the limited knowledge on neck injury mechanisms. Moreover, available crash test dummies for evaluation of the occupant protection for frontal or side collisions are not suitable for the safety assessment in rear end collisions. The overall objective of the project is to minimise the incidence and costs of neck injuries by developing effective research tools and test procedures to improve the protection of car occupants in rear end collisions.

Specific results of this project include:

new biomechanical knowledge concerning neck injury mechanisms
a new crash dummy suitable for safety assessment in rear end collisions
measurement criteria for this crash dummy regarding the neck injury risk
computer modelling tools for injury assessment and design optimization for different sized occupants
test methods to assess safety of seat/head restraint system
guidelines for performance principles of safe seatback/head restraint systems
a prototype seat/headrest system to demonstrate the feasibility of the methods and performance principles generated in this study.
not assigned KP: GIE PSA Peugeot Citroen