Affiliations: Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and System
Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA | Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas Tech
University, Lubbock, TX, USA
Abstract: Without a doubt, the major concern of vehicle design is safety
¨C increasing the survival chance of driver and passenger during a crash
and decreasing the risk of injury. Safety features, such as seat belt, seat
cushion with crash tubing, or frontal and side impact airbags, have been
proposed to protect the occupants from the secondary impacts. This study adapts
a transdisciplinary approach, combining research from epidemiology and injury
biomechanics as a basis for identifying design problem areas and variable
trade-offs. The objectives of this paper are to review literature on head
injury and neck injury, and to provide suggestions for designing against head
injury while considering neck injury. Since the head injury is mainly caused by
contact, the fundamental design principle is to minimize any hard surface
protrusion. Especially sharp objects, such as dash shade and mirrors, must be
removed or kept outside the striking range in any configuration. There are
several principles that can be used, in any combination, to achieve the
required crush depth: (1) to prevent skull damage and brain trauma, locally
modifying the design by removing rigid high points and moving hard assemblies
down or under; (2) to decelerate head and torso at the same rate (which will
also decrease the risk of neck injury) by modifying hard structures to make
them crush or collapsible and obtaining as much clearance. There is a need to
design and construct test equipment that can be used to test neck injury and
head injury simultaneously.
Keywords: head injury criterion, HIC, neck injury, whiplash
