Charlton 1 CRASH PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF BOOSTER SEATS FOR AN AUSTRALIAN CAR

Paper Number 05-0425 The aim of this study was to examine the relative effectiveness of two booster seats for use by children across a wide age span, from around 3 years to 10+ years. The study was part of a broad research program to identify suitable child restraint systems (CRS) to fit a large sedan vehicle to maximise protection in a crash. Dummies were restrained in the rear seat of a vehicle buck in three restraint configurations with boosters: (i) with a standard adult lap-sash seatbelt, (ii) with a seatbelt plus H-harness and crotch strap, or (iii) with a seatbelt plus H-harness with the crotch strap disengaged (to simulate the effects of real-world misuse conditions), and a fourth condition (iv) with an adult seatbelt only. Boosters were fitted in the vehicle with two different anchorage systems: a standard seatbelt and a system including a retrofitted rigid ISOFIX attachment and top tether. HyGe sled tests were conducted to simulate a 64 km/h offset deformable barrier frontal impact with a change in velocity of around 71 km/h. Preliminary investigations were also conducted using side impact simulations with a change in velocity of around 15 km/h. Overall, the booster seats for both the 6 year old dummy and the 3 year old dummy when a (with harness and crotch strap) provided superior crash protection than use of the adult seatbelt. For tests when the H-harness was used to restrain the dummy, use of the crotch strap was critical in eliminating ‘sub-marining’. The research highlighted the potential for serious injury with misuse of child harness systems and identified several areas for design improvement of booster seats