New safety systems have reduced the number of automotive neck injuries. However, this has benefited the male population more than the female population, with a reduction of injuries for males up to 65% greater than for females. This is possibly due to the predominant use of the average-sized male dummy in both product development and legislation testing. Several projects have been initiated to close the gap in protection between males and females. The EU project ADSEAT developed a prototype of an average-sized female dummy, the BioRID P50F. In 2017, a Finite Element (FE) human body model (HBM) representing an average female was presented, the ViVA. It was further developed, in the EU project VIRTUAL, into models of both average females and males, theVIVA+ models, which served as the basis for the design concepts of two Seat Evaluation Tools (SET 50F and SET 50M). The SETs were designed to form a bridge between physical testing and virtual testing in rear impact safetyassessment. They serve as a tool to validate vehicle seat models for virtual testing. The FE models of the SETswere developed to create a virtual representation of the hardware SETs. An important focus of the developmentof the SETs was the kinematics of the spine, as well as the body surface contour, to ensure a biofidelic interaction with vehicle seats. An additional ambition with the SETs is to provide biofidelic head relative to torso responses, addressing soft tissue neck injury protection evaluation of vehicle seats in low velocity rear impacts.
Research funding also provided by Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI).