Headform impact test performance of vehicles under the GTR on pedestrian safety

Abstract

A Global Technical Regulation (GTR) on pedestrian safety is currently in its final draft stages, and may be adopted in Australia as an Australian Design Rule. Currently, selected new vehicles are tested by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) for pedestrian protection; the GTR testing procedure is similar, but has different test conditions. The goal of this study was to estimate how many vehicles tested by ANCAP might be expected to pass the headform testing requirements of the GTR based on the vehicles ANCAP performance. Initially, three popular vehicles were tested to the specifications of the GTR. The resulting data was used to validate a theoretical relationship that predicts the change in Head Injury Criterion (HIC) for a given change in headform mass and impact speed. This relationship was used to predict the best-case and worst-case results for 60 vehicles previously tested by ANCAP, 33 of which are current models. The results indicate that a relatively small number of vehicles would be expected to unequivocally pass the GTR requirements, however many more may pass with little to no modifications.