WG4 Technical solutions: primary and secondary safety

Contacts

Objectives

1. To analyse and asses of the existing active safety technologies for PTW.
2. To identify the innovative safety function to guide the design of new active safety devices.
3. To assess the biomechanics criteria for the evaluation of injuries sustained by PTW users.
4. To develop and improve passive safety countermeasures (helmets and protective clothing), including investigation and development of new materials.

Workplan

Primary Safety

Task 4.1.1 SoA of active safety technologies for PTW

All the existing active safety technologies available in the market and in the literature (from public deliverables of former EU projects and scientific literature) will be investigated in detail. Using the results of WG1, the safety technologies will be assessed: the WG will evaluate the effectiveness of the existing active safety technologies for PTW in different accident scenarios. The study will extract in which scenario the support given by the technology to the rider safety is still lacking

Task 4.1.2 New safety function for PTW active safety

The activity carried out in Task4.1.1 will guide the definition of the needs of the new active technology. The information gathered from the accident analysis and the rider behaviour investigations (WG1) will guide the definition of a set of safety systems and safety functions that will be analysed and prioritized, aiming to find the best function for accident avoidance and mitigation. Finally, the group will define the general basis to identify the appropriate safety system able to implement the safety function selected.

Secondary safety

Task 4.2.1 Injury Biomechanics

This task reviews existing injury criteria and assesses critically whether these criteria reflect the most relevant and severe injuries sustained by PTW riders, as given by hospital data and by the outcome of WG1. Special attention will be paid to the head, and spinal and thoracic body regions.

Task 4.2.2 Protective technologies.

Task 4.2.2 will use the numerical models and relevant injury criteria investigated in Task 4.2.1 to develop improved protective technologies for PTW riders. Advanced materials will be studied to improve the impact and abrasion protection given by helmets under tangential impact and other protective garments (e.g. against injury of the cervical spine, thoracic spine, thorax, etc.) will be optimised against the formulated injury criteria. In addition, this task will assess the effectiveness of on-bike protective systems e.g. airbags, leg protectors in different crash configurations.

Task 4.2.3 Helmet Standards

The proposals produced in other projects, such as COST 327 and MYMOSA, and relevant literature will be studied in-depth and discussed by the expert partners. The focus will be on the impact attenuation test, which aims to assess the impact absorption capacity of helmets. The injury biomechanics (Task 4.2.1) will inform the discussions. Some preliminary proposals are inclusion of the head rotational acceleration in helmet standards, measured during oblique impacts. In addition, the importance of the effect of the body during helmeted head impacts will be investigated and possibly included in isolated-head impact tests. A strategy for approaching the standardisation bodies, such as United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in Geneva, and legislators will be developed and dialogues will be initiated in order to influence standards and policies based on the findings of the study.

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