Analysis of the Possibilities of Improving the Safety of Children Transported in Passenger Cars in Pivoted Child Seat Systems

The study provides a comparative analysis of the possibility of mitigating the effects of head-on collisions on children transported in passenger cars in the safety seats fixed rotationally relative to the car cabin. The adopted testing method was computer simulation based on MADYMO system. The child was modeled as a “ellipsoid” dummy: Hybrid III 3-year-old Child Dummy fastened to the car safety seat with a five-point harness. The seat and the seat harness belts were modeled using finite element method (FEM). The simulation scenario corresponded to typical frontal collisions of cars with a rigid obstacle at the speed of approx. 50 km/h. To assess the degree of injury probability reduction in contrast to currently applied methods of car safety seats fastening – a synthetic injury probability index has been defined. The index is based on selected biomechanical injury criteria for chest, head and neck obtained as a result of simulations and standardized against literature data defining the values recognized as critical for 3-year-old children. The results prove considerable potential of reducing the risk of injury when using a rotating seat.