Effects of Seat Belts and Shock Absorbers on the Safety of Racing Car Drivers

Abstract

This paper aimed to study the behavior of a body (dummy) that was in a race car in the event of a frontal collision with a wall in order to see what loads were acting on the dummy. Based on a complex car model, equipped with two safety system seat belts and a shock absorption system, the behavior of the dummy was obtained following frontal collision of the car–dummy assembly. The accelerations were obtained at different points of the dummy’s body and the force that appeared on the seat belts were determined. The Gibbs–Appell method was used to assess the response of the system based on the equations of motion in a problem involving shocks. This paper demonstrates that the revisited old principle of mechanics can offer an interesting and convenient means to obtain results in a short time. FEM and Altair Hyperworks software II was used to model the system. It can be used to determine whether a seat belt is able to work if it has defects during use, such as scratches, cigarette burns or animal bites.

Keywords

• seat belt
• Gibbs–Appell equations
• analytical mechanics
• shock absorber
• dummy