Comparison across vehicles of passenger head kinematics in abrupt vehicle maneuvers
Creators: name: Reed, Matthew P.
name: Ebert, Sheila M.
name: Jones, Monica L. H.
name: B.-K. Daniel Park
Publisher: name: Taylor & Francis
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Biochemistry
subject: Neuroscience
subject: Physiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Pharmacology
subject: 59999 Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
subject: FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
subject: 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: Cancer
subject: Science Policy
subject: 111714 Mental Health
subject: FOS: Health sciences
subject: FOS: Health sciences

description: <b>Objective:</b> Studies of vehicle occupant motions in response to abrupt vehicle maneuvers have demonstrated movements that may result in changes in the level of protection for the occupant if a crash subsequently occurs. The previous studies have typically used a single vehicle. The current study assesses whether the patterns of occupant head movement are different across passenger vehicle types. <b>Method:</b> Data collection was conducted on a closed test track with the same driver for all trials. A passenger sedan, a minivan, and a pickup truck were equipped with inertial measurement units to quantify vehicle dynamics. Head location was tracked using Microsoft Kinect v2 sensor and a novel methodology that fits 3 D head scan data to the depth data acquired in the vehicle. Twelve men and women with a wide range of body size and age were recruited. The primary purpose of the study was obfuscated by telling the participants that the focus was on vehicle ride motion. Participants sat in the right front seat and wore the vehicle belt. The first event during the test track route was a hard brake (approximately 1 g) to a stop from 35 mph (56 kph). Within the space of approximately 5 min the participants also experienced two aggressive, right-going lane changes, a sharp right turn with simultaneous hard braking, and a second hard braking event. The vehicles were presented in random order for each participant. This paper presents comparison across vehicles of head motions in the braking and lane-change maneuvers. <b>Results:</b> Accelerations were similar across the vehicles for both braking and lane-change events. The means (standard deviations) of forward head-CG excursion in the first braking event were 162 (54), 112 (39), and 176 (46) mm for the minivan, passenger car, and truck, respectively. The forward head excursion in the passenger car was found to be significantly smaller than in the other two vehicles using a paired <i>t</i>-test (<i>p</i> p <b>Discussion:</b> This is the first quantitative occupant kinematics study to compare responses across vehicles. Although a significant difference was found between vehicles, the overall responses are similar to those observed in a previous study. <b>Conclusions:</b> The results confirm previous studies showing large variance in excursions across occupants. Further study is needed to understand the factors that affect responses across vehicles.