2017-2018

Evaluating the Efficacy of Belt Positioning Booster Seat Design (High-back, Low-back and Heightless Booster) in Nearside Impacts with and without Side Curtain Air Bags

Principal Investigator: Aditya Belwadi, PhD

Belt-positioning booster seats are recommended for children who use vehicle seat belts as primary restraints but who are too small to obtain good belt fit. The vast majority of previous research evaluating the protection afforded by booster seats has been conducted in frontal crash conditions. This study focuses on nearside impacts, a crash condition that has gained attention in child occupant protection. The project builds on previous CChIPS work and focuses on evaluating the effect of…

Ensuring Safety of Children in Self-driving Vehicles

Principal Investigator: Patrice Tremoulet, PhD

With the launch of Uber, Lyft and other mobile applications, many parents are now relying on Uber to shuttle their children across town to afterschool activities or other functions. The question about the proper age for a minor to be unaccompanied in a cab becomes more complicated with the recent launches of Uber self-driving cabs in Pittsburgh and in San Francisco. At which age can a child ride unaccompanied by an adult in a self-driving car? How do we ensure that this transportation…

Efficacy of Automatic Emergency Braking During SHRP2 Rear-end Crashes

Principal Investigator: Thomas Seacrist, MBE

Among motor vehicle crashes, rear-ends are the most common form of crash, particularly among novice teen drivers. Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) has the potential to prevent or reduce the severity of these rear-end crashes. The SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the potential efficacy of AEB on real-world crash scenarios. This project aims to recreate SHRP2 scenarios with the presence of AEB to determine if the application of AEB would have…

2006-2007

State-of-the-Art Science: An Update on Child and Adolescent Injury Research and Prevention

This study provides the CChIPS members with a biannual, state-of-the-art summary of the current research, outreach, legislature and media coverage on child and adolescent injury prevention.

Comparative Performance of the Hybrid III 3C and Q3 Dummy Necks in Simulated Frontal Crashes

Principal Investigator: Matthew R. Maltese, PhD

At the time this research was conducted, two anthropometric test devices (ATDs) representing the 3-year-old human child existed -- the Q3 and the Hybrid III 3C. When used to evaluate safety systems, each yielded different neck injury criteria metrics. The project goal was to build on the quasistatic testing by examining the performance of the necks in a simulated frontal FMVSS No. 213 crash. The results of this research were used to determine how the two ATDs differed in their response…

Injury Mechanisms in Belt-restrained Children in Side Impact Crashes

Principal Investigator: Matthew R. Maltese, PhD

The research delineated injury mechanisms for children involved in side impact crashes and highlighted the differences and similarities between adult and child injury patterns. The research helped determine when adult safety system concepts can be applied to children and when they cannot. It also described the patterns and mechanisms of injuries, such as abdominal or upper extremity, or injuries to various organs experienced by belt-restrained children in side-impact crashes and…

Accidental Head Injuries in Young Children: Integrated Epidemiological and Biomechanical Analysis

This research was based on the hypothesis that accidental head injury outcomes are better for older children than infants due to biomechanical and developmental differences. A retrospective single-center cohort study and anthropomorphic surrogate experiments were conducted to correlate age-specific biomechanical factors and environmental circumstances associated with accidental head injury. The information garnered from this project helped CChIPS target high-priority opportunities to enhance child safety via effective public education and improved safety in automotive, home, and play…

Development of a Rear Facing Child Restraint System Finite Element Model

The objective of this study was to begin the process of building the database of child seats by developing a geometrically well-defined rear facing infant seat. Testing of the plastic material was conducted in accordance with ASTM D638-03 standards. A rigid body and finite element-based computational models were developed. The models were exercised in both MADYMO and LS-DYNA. Occupant responses in both models were also comparatively studied.

Understanding the Variation of Accelerations Experienced by Rear-seated Occupants

This study gathered acceleration data from the rear cross members of a sample of popular passenger cars, SUVs and minivans of model years ranging from 1980 to 2005 that have undergone NCAP testing. Analysis was conducted of the rear cross member acceleration data by model year of every sampled vehicle to determine the change in acceleration over the years. The effect of this variation in acceleration was quantified with the help of a MADYMO model. These results helped researchers understand and quantify the variation of these accelerations based on dummy performance.

Feasibility of Using CHOP's Practice-based Research Network (PBRN) as a Recruitment Tool

The study tested the feasibility of using an electronic research network in primary care physician offices to recruit teenage drivers as research participants. A secondary goal was to develop a system for recruitment in other traffic injury prevention research projects. The study's broad long-term objective was to develop a system for providing consistent and current traffic injury prevention information through primary care physician offices.

Child Booster Seat use in China: A Focus Group Study

This study investigated the amount of knowledge relating to child restraint systems, specifically booster seats, that parents in Beijing, China possess. This information was then used to select and design interventions targeted toward parents in Beijing. These interventions were shown to parents in Fall 2007 and researchers collected the reactions and behavioral changes resulting from the programs. Booster seats were provided to enrolled parents, allowing for actual behavior changes to be monitored throughout the course of the study.

Extending Rear-facing Recommendations to Children Over Age One

This study examined patterns of injury to children in rear-facing child restraint systems and forward-facing child restraint systems in order to provide evidence for the potential benefit of extending rear-facing recommendations to children over age one.

2015-2016

Pediatric Brain Injury Assessment in Real World Crashes (Multiple Year Project)

Principal Investigator: Matthew R. Maltese, PhD

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is the leading pediatric injury in motor vehicle crashes, and an ever-expanding array of safety systems are being developed that have the potential to mitigate TBI. Human body computer models are under development and have the potential to guide the development of such safety systems, but pediatric human body models are limited. In this project, investigators are developing a family of pediatric finite element (FE) brain models. In prior years of this…

Quantifying CRS Fit in the Vehicle Seat Environment – Digitization Approach (Multiple Year Project)

Principal Investigator: Aditya Belwadi, PhD

Automotive interior design optimization must balance the design of the vehicle seat and occupant space for safety, comfort and aesthetics with the accommodation of add-on restraint products such as child restraint systems (CRS). Important to this balance is understanding the breadth of CRS dimensions, especially as CRS design is constantly changing. Year 2 efforts will build on previous work by creating virtual surrogates of additional CRS types. The long-term objective is to gain insight…

Understanding and Predicting Human Driving Behaviors via Machine Learning Models (Multiple Year Project)

Principal Investigator: Yi-Ching Lee, PhD

Poor speed management is a key factor in teen driver crashes. In order to inform new training and technology to reduce teen crash risk due to poor speed management, a more complete understanding of this complex driving behavior is needed. Early results from our current CChIPS work indicate that machine learning techniques can be used to model drivers’ speed management behaviors. These techniques have the potential to become part of in-vehicle monitoring system that monitors and alerts drivers…

Compatibility of Belt-positioning Boosters in Vehicles

Principal Investigator: Julie Mansfield, PhD

The broad objective of this research is to increase belt-positioning booster usage for children who are not yet large enough for adult seat belts. This study aims to quantify common compatibility issues which may be prompting poor usage rates of belt-positioning boosters, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of booster compatibility in the market today, and provide benchmark values for manufacturers to reference during design decisions.

Evaluation of Interaction of Inflatable Seat Belts with CRS Installed in Aircraft Seats in Oblique Impact Sled Tests

Principal Investigator: Aditya Belwadi, PhD

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has standards and regulations that are intended to protect aircraft occupants in the event of a crash, yet transport category passenger seats continue to evolve.  The latest development is seats oriented obliquely with respect to the aircraft centerline, which presents a novel loading environment that may permit significant flailing. In addition, the installation of inflatable seatbelts with these seats raises new challenges regarding their use with…

Defining Anterior-Posterior Motion of the Shoulder Girdle

Principal Investigator: Laura Boucher, PhD

The overall goal of this project is to investigate the response of the shoulder girdle complex by non-invasively measuring clavicular displacement in 3-4 year old children. These data will be compared to a 3 year-old anthropomorphic test device (ATD) with the goal of providing recommendations for continued improvements in biofidelity of the shoulder, and thus the ability to improve thorax, cervical spine, and head responses in the ATD during frontal crash tests.

Validation and Reliability Testing of a New Hybrid III 6-Year-Old Lower Extremity

Principal Investigator: Laura Boucher, PhD

The long-term objective of this project is to create an instrument that will provide researches and engineers the ability to directly evaluate the crash response of the new 6-year-old Hybrid III ATD lower extremity (ATD-LE), providing information on injury mechanism and injury tolerance of the ankle and leg. Additionally, the ATD-LE may also help lead to advances in car restraint system (CRS) design and automotive crash testing. 

Effect of ATD Certification Specification Variance on Full-scale Sled Testing Performance

Principal Investigator: Matthew R. Maltese, PhD

This project enhances our understanding of the regulatory test (FMVSS 213) that governs car restraint system (CRS) performance. The long-term objective of this line of research is to increase the engineering knowledge-base available to industry and researchers on the variability associated with the regulatory test procedures used to certify pediatric safety systems, thereby decreasing the time to bring new technologies to market and thus reducing the cost to the consumer.