Safety Research for Cars of the Future
The FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) will examine potential safety issues arising from the development of new automobiles being designed by the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV). This arrangement is the result of an interagency agreement between FHWA and the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Advanced Automotive Technologies (OAAT).
New hybrid and PNGV cars may not look different on the outside, but inside they operate in a whole new way. PNGV is a cooperative, collaborative research and development program between the U.S. Government and the U.S. Council for Automotive Research, which was formed by the three auto manufacturers, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. The partnership was established by President Clinton on September 29, 1993. The program plan calls for development of production prototype cars that can achieve three times the fuel efficiency of the current class of vehicles (defined as comparable to Chrysler Concorde, Ford Taurus, and Chevrolet Lumina). At the same time, this new generation of vehicles should maintain the performance, passenger capacity, and utility standards of today's vehicles while meeting or exceeding safety and emission requirements.
The OAAT is currently the lead unit at DOE involved in the most promising programs in automotive research, which includes improving vehicle fuel efficiency within the Hybrid Vehicle program and the PNGV program. NCAC will review the safety issues facing the concept technologies of the PNGV and hybrid vehicles and will advise DOE on the future needs for evaluating crashworthiness of lightweight and composite-based automobiles.
-- Leonard Meczkowski, (202) 493-3317.
Time for New Dummies
A finite element model of the Hybrid III dummy used in U.S. DOT crash tests has been developed at the NCAC at the George Washington University Vir- ginia Campus. The model is comprised of 15,000 elements. This LS-DYNA3D model is validated for frontal impacts and has been used with airbags and seatbelts to assess injury levels in various frontal crash modes. A version of the dummy that features a detailed human leg model has also been developed. These models are available to researchers in the areas of automotive safety and biomechanics.
-- Ahmed Noureddine, (703) 729-8368.
