Teaching

ISD514/AUTO514 "Vehicle Crashworthiness and Occupant Protection"

Course Description: This course will teach the basics of vehicle crashworthiness and occupant protection along with finite element modeling for vehicle safety designs. Specifically, upon completion of this course, the students should be able to understand the general procedures and state-of-the-art tools to evaluate vehicle crash safety, apply fundamental principles to interpret injury mechanisms, safety concerns, and design benefits in different types of crashes, and assess safety systems using finite element crash simulations.  This course will be featured with three projects, including a modeling project, a literature review project, and a group project on vehicle crash safety designs.

Learning objectives: As a result of this course, students will be able to:

• • • Recall major regulated and consumer-information crash testing procedures

    • List common injuries in different types of motor-vehicle crashes

    • Name major crash-injury databases and associated contents

    • Describe principles of crash energy management and occupant protection

    • Interpret principles of occupant protection with restraint systems

    • Review injury assessment tools and injury risk estimations for crash tests

    • Classify mechanisms of different injuries to the head, neck, chest, and lower extremities

    • Examine energy-absorbing capability of simple structures through finite element modeling

    • Compare safety concerns for various vulnerable populations

    • Assess safety systems that may benefit a wide range of special conditions (e.g. automated vehicles, oblique impacts, and occupant variability) through finite element modeling

    • As a student-proposed group design project, formulate potential safety design concepts

Availability: This course is offered every Fall semester through Integrative Systems + Design (ISD).  Online option is also available.

MDP Research Team

Project: Toward Adaptive Designs for Human Safety: Developing Parametric Human Body Models to Present a Diverse Population

Goal: To develop the next generation of parametric human body models representing the whole population.  Such models will enable population-based or individualized simulations, which will serve for adaptive/personalized designs for human safety, such as adaptive vehicle seat belt and air bag, personalized helmets and other safety devices and sport equipment.

Students: Students ranging from 1st year to graduate level are welcome to apply, and all will be encouraged to stay on the team for more than the two-semester minimum. Leadership roles are available in the lab, and experienced students will be a natural fit for these positions as their knowledge and skills develop over time.