Occupant Restraint Optimisation in Frontal Crash to Mitigate the Risk of Submarining in Out‐of‐Position Situation

Submarining can be described as a slipping of the lap‐belt above the iliac spines of the occupant during frontal crash. This can cause very serious injuries. The goal of this study is to compare different finite element (FE) simulations performed with a biofidelic THOR dummy in a real seat with similar Post Mortem Human Subject (PMHS) tests. This dummy was obtained by modifying a standard FE THOR model. In the first stage, two configurations of tests were defined: the first one was to correctly restrain the occupant; and the second was to observe the submarining. Three PMHS tests were performed for each configuration. They are presented in a companion paper (Urio t et al., 2015). For the “non‐submarining” configuration, the occupants were well restrained. For the second configuration, submarining was observed. In the second stage, to decrease the risk of injury in the “submarining” configuration, a FE study with the biofidelic THOR dummy was performed. The enhanced restraint system was composed of a double lap‐belt pretension and a double lap ‐ belt load limiter. Three new PMHS tests – presented in the companion paper – were performed. A good correlation level was observed between PMHS and biofidelic THOR dummy test results regarding the risk of submarining.