APROSYS - Advanced Protection Systems
Overview
Background & policy context:
The decrease in the number of road transport fatalities and increase in the number of injuries and increasing number of road accidents observed in the late 1990s and early 2000s can, amongst other things, be explained by the introduction of improved technologies for newer vehicles and higher vehicle safety standards.
The European Commission has continuously supported new developments in vehicle safety through subsequent framework projects and other safety initiatives. The FP6 Work Programme was no exception and called for new initiatives for increasing road, rail and waterborne safety.
Objectives:
The main objective of this Integrated Project (IP) on Advanced Protection Systems (APROSYS) was to improve passive safety for all European road users in all relevant accident types and accident severities. The secondary objective was to increase the level of competitiveness of the European automotive industry.
The project focused on scientific and technology development in the field of passive safety (crash safety). The field of passive safety concerns in particular human biomechanics (injury mechanisms and criteria), vehicle and infrastructure crashworthiness and occupant and road user protection systems. The goal of APROSYS was to develop and introduce critical technologies that improve passive safety for all European road users in all relevant accident types and accident severities.
The specific objectives of APROSYS were:
- New injury criteria and injury tolerances;
- New mathematical models of the human body;
- New world-wide harmonised crash dummy;
- New knowledge and tools for intelligent safety systems;
- Enhancement of virtual testing technology;
- New test methods (for advanced safety systems);
- Advanced protection systems for injury reduction in most relevant accident types.
Methodology:
APROSYS approached the project in nine inter-connected sub-projects (seven of which were technical), as follows:
SP1: Car accidents:
- development of (harmonised) test and evaluation methods that will guide safety design and improve car occupant safety;
- development and demonstration of advanced safety technologies for the improvement of car occupant safety.
SP2: Heavy vehicles (HV):
- evaluation methods and advanced protection systems for heavy vehicles;
- development of HV Aggressivity Index and pedestrian/cyclist friendly design strategies and concepts.
SP3: Pedestrian/Cyclist accidents:
- evaluation methods and advanced protection systems for cars, MPVs (Multi-Purpose Vehicles) and SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) to protect pedestrians and pedal cyclists;
- test methods for vehicle front ends to assess pedestrian, vehicle based pedestrian and pedal cyclist safety technologies and material models for laminated materials.
SP4: Motorcycle accidents:
- evaluation methods and advanced protection systems for powered two-wheelers;
- motorcycle crashworthiness structure, motorcyclists advanced protection systems and forgiving road infrastructure behaviour.
SP5: Biomechanics:
- new knowledge on injury mechanisms and corresponding injury criteria and tolerance levels;
- focus on head injuries, new injury criteria for front & side impact and small female side impact dummy.
SP6: Intelligent safety systems:
- knowledge and tools enabling the design, implementation and evaluation of intelligent safety systems that improve the crash safety of vehicles;
- development of a pre-crash system with sensors, algorithms and actuators for side impact.
SP7: Virtual testing:
- tools and methods for design and evaluation of advanced crash protection systems by numerical simulations;
- modelling technologies for critical issues, stochastic crash simulation models and virtual testing procedure for existing and new regulations.
The two non-technical sub-projects, SP8 and SP9, dealt with Training and Innovation, and Project Management respectively.
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