The focus of this paper is on a large-scale reliability based design optimization of a car body structure for crash safety. The application of multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) to automotive vehicle structure design has been an interest topic over the past several years (Yang et al. 1994, Schramm et al. 1999). Sobieski et al. (2000) and Kodiyalam et al. (2001) reported a method with v...

road traffic crashes (rtcs) account for great mortality and morbidity rates worldwide, resulting in substantial global burden. factors contributing to rtc generally fall into three categories: environmental, vehicle, and human, with the human factor being by far the leading determinant. obtaining an in-depth exploration of driving behavior and factors underpinning risky driving could be of part...

PURPOSE Few studies have examined the psychological factors underlying the association between cell phone use and motor vehicle crash. We sought to examine the factor structure and convergent validity of a measure of problematic cell phone use, and to explore whether compulsive cell phone use is associated with a history of motor vehicle crash. METHODS We recruited a sample of 383 undergradua...

Johansen and Sornette proposes that the crash has fundamentally an endogenous origin and exogenous shocks only serve as triggering factors. This endogenous force is shown in price as power law log-periodicity (PLLP) signature prior to a crash. We estimate the highly nonlinear model developed by them using a hybrid approach which combines scatter search, genetic adaptor and tabu search. The mode...

Current procedures for estimating occupant risk in real-world vehicle crashes do not account for the performance of the occupant restraints, such as seatbelts and airbags. This paper compares the ability of two restraint performance metrics, the ridedown efficiency and the restraint quotient, to predict occupant injury as measured by a crash test dummy. The responses of crash test dummies were ...

This study investigates the relationship between occupant injury and a host of other factors, including traffic and weather conditions present at the time of crash, road design, vehicle type, and occupant characteristics. Crash and traffic-detector data from six Orange County freeways were used in an ordered probit model. Crash outcomes were classified for each occupant, as no injury, non-visib...

This research involves the development of a tool that can be used to assess the changes in traffic safety tendencies that result from changes in traffic flow. The tool uses data from single inductive loop detectors, converting 30-second observations of volume and occupancy for multiple freeway lanes into traffic flow regimes. Each regime has a specific pattern of crash types, which were determi...

INTRODUCTION Some patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome are at higher risk of being involved in road traffic accidents. It has not been possible to identify this group from clinical and polysomnographic information or using simple simulators. We explore the possibility of identifying this group from variables generated in an advanced PC-based driving simulator. METHODS All patients ...