Authors: Tania Holmes, Paul Phillips, Kyle Cooper, Hormoz Marzbani
Abstract
Recent conflicts have led defence forces around the world to increase their vehicle protection to mitigate injury. However, the adoption and adaption of automotive safety technology to enhance survivability of personnel in armored military vehicles has been limited. In this study, a light armored military vehicle was blast tested and the vehicle response investigated to identify timeframes where automotive active and passive safety systems could be used to improve occupant survivability both in blast scenarios and military driving incidents. Internal and external high-speed cameras tracked the movement of the vehicle, the seats and anthropomorphic test devices over the entire blast event. The analysis demonstrates that there are timeframes that could be used for safety systems such as automotive airbags in novel applications. The addition of these protective systems may also show benefit in vehicle crash and rollover scenarios.
Type: Short Communication