Review of the Development of the ISO Side Impact Test Procedure for Child Restraint Systems

Side impacts are frequent and can pose a hazard for children travelling at the struck side in passenger cars. Although the number of seriously injured children has decreased during the last decades, there is still a considerable risk especially for head, neck and thorax injuries. ISO/TC 22/SC12/WG 1 (working group on child safety inside passenger cars) has been working on the definition of a side impact test procedure for child restraint systems for a number of years, taking into account other side impact test procedures for CRS (child restraint system) already implemented in some countries. This paper is a comprehensive summary of accident data (from USA and Europe), boundary conditions to be recognised for the definition of a side impact test procedure for CRS (crash worthiness, geometry, etc.) and current side impact test procedures. Special emphasis is given to the design specification for a suitable test procedure with respect to loading conditions and test severity based on full-scale test data. The paper is based on a recent ISO Technical Report, which is a comprehensive base for the future ISO test procedure development.