Principal Investigator: Rajiv Menon, PhD, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

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.