Introduction to Vehicle Occupant Safety

Recent World Health Organization report on road safety estimates traffic fatality rate in India at 22.6 per 100,000 population, which is more than two times the rate in Europe (9.3) and higher than the global average (18.2). This results in a loss of 3 lakh lives annually in India, resulting in many families being pushed back into poverty and a national GDP loss of 3%. Improved vehicle design is a major contributor, among other factors, to the reduction in world-wide fatality rate. Field accident studies and Safety Evaluation Tools such as crash test dummies have played a major role in improving vehicle design. With increasing digitalization of design process, safety evaluations of vehicle design have also migrated to simulation tools. Although models of crash test dummies are used for basic safety evaluations, they prove insufficient due to their limited biofidelity. This also restricts their utility for future crash scenarios, for example, involving autonomous cars and new seating configurations. As an alternative, finite element human body models have become valuable tools for detailed injury evaluations. This workshop intends to introduce many concepts of vehicle occupant safety including but not limited to, active and passive safety systems, injury biomechanics, human body models for simulation and anthropometric test devices. Experts from Vehicle Safety, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden shall give lectures in this workshop apart from experts at IIT Madras and VIT Chennai.

The workshop is aimed at students (final year undergrad students and post graduate students), research scholars, project staff, faculty in academia and industry professionals interested in the domain of vehicle occupant safety. Students, research scholars, project staff and faculty in academia in Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil, Applied Mechanics, Mechatronics and allied disciplines are welcome. Industry professionals who have worked in the above disciplines and having interest in vehicle occupant safety are welcome to register. Participants shall get an e-certificate on their successful completion of the workshop.