A numerical study on the injury prevention for the occupants seated in aircraft side-facing seats

ABSTRACT

During aircraft landing, passengers in side-facing seats suffer high risks of injury in the emergency braking. The objective of this study is to investigate how to improve the restraint system for passengers seated in side-facing seats. The finite element model of the typical side-facing seat using the European Side Impact Dummy-2 (ES-2) was developed and validated. Then, parametric studies were conducted to investigate the effects of seatbelt anchorage locations and armrest height on the occupant injury. In addition, this study further analysed the characteristics of occupant injury for multi-occupant collision condition. Results showed that seatbelt hanging point and left anchor point which were close to occupant centreline as well as the higher armrest could lower the risk of occupant injury. Multi-occupant study showed that the injury risks of head, neck and thorax of the occupant who was far away from armrest were more serious than the occupant near armrest, and the injury risks of the abdomen and pelvis of the occupant near armrest were more serious than the occupant far away from armrest. Moreover, when the contact between adjacent occupants occurred, increasing the distance between occupants could decrease the risk of occupant injury.

KEYWORDS:

• Aircraft side-facing seat
• armrest
• injury prevention
• multi-occupant
• simulation study

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51505137]. I would like to acknowledge staffs in Altair Development France for their technique support of FE analysis software RADIOSS. I would also like to thank Dr DeWeese R for providing test data used to validate the model.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51505137].