RESEARCH & EVALUATION

Vehicle Safety Research

Vehicle Safety

Resources
Reports Library (rosap)

The Office of Vehicle Safety Research and supports U.S. DOT’s and NHTSA’s safety goals by conducting research and safety testing of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment. 

NHTSA’s recently published vehicle safety reports are listed chronologically below.



139 Results
Title
 

Rear-Seat Frontal Crash Protection Research With Application to Vehicles With Automated Driving Systems, Volume 1

This report is part of the overall FMVSS Considerations for Automated Driving Systems project and stemmed out of the potential considerations from the Volume 2 report that noted that “ADS-DV developments may be changing the role of the rear seat to be more like that of the front seat, affecting FMVSS No. 208 in particular.”  The research in this report is a proactive examination of frontal-crash protection for rear-seat occupants.  The project focus is the assessment of a 50th percentile male in the second-row rear seat using anthropomorphic test devices and finite element models.

 DOT HS 813 269

Crash Simulation of FMVSS No. 214 Safety Performance

This research used and developed detailed FE vehicle models to simulate FMVSS No. 214 static door crush, dynamic MDB, and VTP test conditions to compare intrusions, applied forces, and occupant metrics among baseline and modified vehicle simulations. The vehicle modifications were developed to meet or only partially meet FMVSS No. 214 static and dynamic test requirements.  The results were evaluated to consider the feasibility of using the dynamic performance measurements as a surrogate for the static test.

 DOT HS 813 276

Integrated Seat Belt System Model Development

This research report documents the development of a finite element model representing a seat with integrated seat belts from a recent model passenger vehicle. Static tests evaluated seat deformation and potential failure mechanisms. Dynamic tests with appropriate anthropomorphic test dummies evaluated occupant kinematics and injury in high-severity front- and rear-impact crashes. All test data, along with seat tear down measurements and component testing, factored into the development and validation of the FE model. The data from these tests was used to validate the seat model.

 DOT HS 813 116

Development of Test Procedures for Lower Interior Rear Seat Occupant Protection

NHTSA conducted research to develop test procedures and assessment criteria to address injuries from impacts with lower interior surfaces in the rear seat, focusing on head and face injuries due to contacts with seat backs, head restraints, and lower B-pillars.  To evaluate the head injury potential of production vehicles, vehicles were tested using a methodology based on the upper interior test procedure of FMVSS No. 201. Three targets were chosen on the seat back and one on the head restraint for each seat model. Elevated Head Injury Criterion (HIC) results from contact to these surfaces were found, as were feasible countermeasures. For lower B-pillars, a procedure was developed for a new impact location lower on the B-pillar toward the rear of the vehicle.  Elevated HIC results were found, as were feasible countermeasures.

 DOT HS 813 319

Repeatability and Reproducibility Of the FMVSS No. 213 Side Impact Test

This report documents NHTSA’s evaluation of testing using the proposed FMVSS No. 213 child side impact procedures conducted on both acceleration and deceleration sleds. In January 2014 the NHTSA released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend FMVSS No. 213 to include a side impact test and additional performance requirements for child restraint systems. Since the NPRM was released, NHTSA has modified the sled-on-sled test buck to minimize variability in installation, be more durable, and better match the proposed frontal FMVSS No. 213 seat assembly. The modified FMVSS No. 213 side impact test was evaluated for repeatability and reproducibility at the two different laboratories in test setup, overall kinematics of the child restraints, and dummy responses.

 DOT HS 813 211

FMVSS No. 213 Side Impact Test Evaluation and Revision

In 2014 NHTSA published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) requiring all child restraint systems (CRSs) seating children up to 40 lb to provide protection in side impact crashes. The proposed sled test simulates rear seat environment of the two-vehicle side crash replicated by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 214, “Side impact protection,” moving deformable barrier test of a small passenger car. Since then additional research assessed comments and research questions presented in the NPRM. This report addresses the changes incorporated in the test buck and test methodology from those that were originally released with the NPRM.

 DOT HS 812 791

Hydrogen Container Performance Testing

This report describes research to evaluate the life cycle durability testing requirements for high pressure hydrogen containers set forth in the Global Technical Regulation (GTR) No. 13 for hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles. NHTSA is considering adopting the GTR requirements into a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard.  However, the GTR lacks detail and contains inconsistencies that can only be resolved through development and evaluation of laboratory test procedures. NHTSA contracted Powertech Labs, which is equipped to conduct the specialized hydrogen container assembly testing required in the GTR, to develop detailed test procedures and generate test data to confirm the feasibility of conducting the proposed test sequences. These tests consist of a series of hydraulic and pneumatic pressure cycling and flaw tolerance tests meant to simulate a 15-year service life.  Hydrogen containers from three manufacturers were subjected to the tests.  Setup diagrams, equipment, procedures, instrumentation, results, and observations were documented.

 DOT HS 812 988

Firewall Design in Buses to Mitigate the Propagation of Engine Fires

This report evaluates designs of the partition (firewall) between the engine compartment and the passenger compartment in current motorcoaches, medium-size buses, and school buses. Research examined the ability of the firewalls to mitigate the propagation of fire originating in the engine compartment into the passenger compartment, the effect of openings or gaps in firewall designs on ability to mitigate fire propagation, of the firewall under a frontal impact crash for front-engine compartments or rear impact for buses with rear engines, improvements to firewall designs for mitigating propagation of engine fires into the passenger compartment, and practical considerations and design constraints for improved firewalls to mitigate propagation of engine compartment fires into the passenger compartment.

 DOT HS 813 282

Foundations of Automotive Software

This report chronicles the history as well as the current state-of-the-art practices of software development within the automotive sector.  Key concepts, approaches, trends, and knowledge of automotive software development were collected to benchmark industry practices as well as to compare these to non-automotive industry sectors.  The report provides a conceptual framework and taxonomy to articulate the relationships among relevant factors driving the evolution of automotive software development, which can be updated to incorporate new classifications and/or sub-classifications as the automotive software development landscape evolves.

 DOT HS 813 226

Testing of Unattended Child Reminder Systems

NHTSA tested aftermarket, prototype, and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) unattended child reminder systems available for purchase or testing in the summer of 2020.  Generalized functional assessment methodologies to document the systems’ capabilities were developed.  The study assessed nine new systems and technologies introduced since the previous study was conducted in 2015. Results showed that each system met own design criteria, alerting the caregivers when vehicles were turned off with children still inside. OEM systems met criteria and alerted the caregivers with a display or audio alert as designed. However, the rear-door logic systems as currently implemented will not ensure that all occupants are out of the vehicle at the end of the trip. The systems performed differently in addressing some real-world situations encountered in the Special Crash Investigations case reviews of pediatric vehicular heatstroke fatalities in 2019.

 DOT HS 813 223