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The introduction of frontal airbags and seatbelt pretensioners for front seat occupants provided an opportunity to address injuries caused by seatbelt loading by introducing load‐limiters, which were intended to reduce belt loading while maintaining proper restraint. Investigation and forensic analysis of real‐world crashes identified that the implementation of these devices, in some circumstances, increased the potential of injury. This paper focuses on the trade‐offs of load‐limiters, that is, the reduction loading to the occupant versus the corresponding increase in seatbelt webbing and occupant movement. If the additional webbing introduced is not controlled, the risk of injury to the occupant is increased and could result in more frequent and severe injuries rather than a reduction. This paper quantifies the webbing introduced by load‐limiter activation through forensic analysis of the seatbelt involved in real‐world crashes and testing and assesses its effect on the injuries sustained by the occupant.

Research and development in the field of child occupant crash protection relies heavily on the biofidelity of anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) used in testing and the ability to relate measured parameters on the ATD to injury. However, there is very little live subject or cadaver testing with children to validate the biofidelity of the current state-of-the-art child ATDs. In an effort to bridge the gap, a study was conducted to determine whether the Hybrid-III 3-year-old ATD could reasonably re-create the dynamic response of a child in a real-world crash and whether the ATD could reliably predict injuries. In other words, does the data from testing with the ATD give results consistent with real-world experience? This paper contains an analysis of the neck load and moment data collected during this testing using Nij as an analysis tool to predict neck injury. This expands on prior analysis presented by the authors in 1999, which included a discussion of the initial results of a test program and analysis of individual force and moment data. At that time, Nij values could not be calculated and related to injury due to disagreement in the community as to the specific method for evaluating Nij as well as how the value would relate to injury.

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