Development and Optimization of a New Occupant Restraint System for Improving Mini Vehicle Safety
With the increasing number of vehicles, transportation safety has become an important issue globally. Compared to other vehicles, mini vehicles usually don’t meet the requirement of safety regulations due to its compact occupant space. Moreover a mini vehicle is usually designed without an airbag. In this study, a new complete facet occupant restraint system (ORS) model of a mini vehicle without airbag is studied. An improvement for this was considered by comparing the mini vehicle to a multi-body model, was developed using MADYMO and validated against partial test data. Optimization technique was used to determine the optimum parameters of ORS. Results show that seatbelt stiffness is the most significant factor for head injuries in drivers. For a compact mini vehicle with high stiffness and without airbag, high seat belt elongation, low collapse force of collapsible steering column less than 2500 N can effectively reduce the injury of driver in frontal crash.