Protecting Passengers in Highly Reclined Postures: Volunteer and Simulation Studies

I attended the IRCOBI Conference in Florence this month. My colleague Kyle Boyle presented a paper describing recent simulation studies he conducted to assess possible outcomes for reclined passengers in frontal crashes. This work was conducted to guide the design of a PMHS test series we will begin in the coming months. The simulations used the GHBMC midsize-male simplified model. This study was notable in using an empirical posture-prediction model for positioning the human body model. (Our paper on reclined passenger posture and belt fit has recently been published at Traffic Injury Prevention.) Although the GHBMC model has not been validated for these reclined conditions, the results suggest that preventing submaring in reclined postures will require changes in belt anchorage locations. Future work will consider individuals with higher BMI, who our previous studies suggest are at higher risk of submarining.