Overview
The EU Directive that covers seat belt wearing requires children less than 150cm tall (or where there is an exemption - 135cm) travelling in cars, vans and goods vehicles to use an appropriate child restraint. The concept of EPOCH was to promote the improvement of safety for older children travelling in vehicles. This was done by extending the development of the protocols, test procedures and measurement tools necessary to carry out impact tests for restraint systems designed to protect older and larger children in vehicle collisions.
The concept of the EPOCH project was to promote the improvement of safety for older children travelling in vehicles. This will be done by extending the development of the protocols, test procedures and measurement tools necessary, in view of the recent changes in legislation, to carry out impact tests for restraint systems designed to protect older and larger children in vehicle collisions. The results of this will directly impact European and potentially worldwide testing.
To date, the regulations in the field of child safety have relied on the 'P' series child dummies as restraint loading devices. The EC projects, CREST and CHILD worked on the development of the 'Q' series of dummies, which have been recommended for use in the NPACS assessment programme. However, consumer test programmes are unable to provide an assessment for children over the age of 6 years with the 'Q' series dummy as there is currently no 10-12 year old dummy available. This means that consumers will not be able to make informed decisions when buying a child restraint system for their older children, and hence provide the best protection for them, which is out of step with the recent changes in legislation.
The aims of the EPOCH project are to:
- Produce a 10-12 year old prototype 'Q' series dummy;
- Extend the NPACS testing and rating protocols to include assessments of child restraints for older children;
- Make proposals for pass/fail criteria that will allow the assessment of child restraints for older children in ECE Regulation if the 'Q' series dummies replace the 'P' series in the future;
The results of this three-year project will actively promote the safety of older children to the consumer and contribute to the reduction of fatal and seriously injured child occupants.
Funding
Results
- The EPOCH Project has produced dummy resembling a 10,5 year old, the Q10.
Initially it was recommended to select the Q12 dummy (11,6 year old anthropometry: mass 40,0 kg and stature 1 500 mm) in line with the max size of children should make use of an appropriate child restraint system (CRS).
However, after a stakeholders forum discussion the EPOCH team decided to proceed with the Q10 (10,5 year anthropometry: mass 25,5kg and stature 1443mm). It was augmented that the Q10 is the best representation of older children that make use of CRS, including the children with maximum size that use a CRS. From the results it seems that the Q10 response shows similar trends to the responses obtained previously with adult PMHS and in this regard demonstrates good biofidelity. - Development of risk functions for older children.
EPOCH sought to bring together the most recent knowledge and techniques on the development of injury risk functions through the scaling of adult data. Additionally, the material properties information available for children was reviewed. Using preferred scaling techniques and the most up to date material properties, methods of calculating injury risk function for the older children are recommended. The scaling was then applied to generate risk curves or injury thresholds values for the following parameters:- Linear head acceleration
- Neck tension, anterior-posterior bending, and shear force
- Chest compression
- Work proposals have been made as to the criteria which should be used with the Q10 in regulation No 44 of the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations (UN/ECE).
Strategy targets
An efficient and integrated mobility system: Acting on transport safety saving thousands of lives