Effects of a foldable booster safety seat with integrated seatbelt buckle on protecting 6-year-old and 10-year-old children

Abstract

Motor vehicle crashes and accidents have injured millions of children, making them a grave concern for automotive engineers. Child restraint systems (CRS) have been found to offer significant benefits in mitigating the risk of damage in children. Hence, the foldable booster seat (FBS) with an integrated seatbelt buckle, a new CRS, can be an excellent safety seat for protecting children’s passengers. For the first time, this study compares the kinematic and injury metrics of 6-year-old (6YO) and 10-year-old (10YO) children passengers seated in different CRS to assess the reducing injury effect of the FBS, considering various initial velocities. The based finite element child sled models were constructed using booster seat CAD geometry and analyzed using the crash pulse of a correlated finite element sedan model. Eighteen scenarios were investigated, considering 6YO and 10YO dummies with and without using a traditional booster seat (TBS) and a FBS subjected to various accident velocities (30, 50, and 64 km/h). To determine the efficacy of the FBS, the child kinematics, head acceleration, HIC₁₅, chest acceleration, and N_ij were extracted as metrics. In this specific study, the results determined that the FBS effectively decreased the risk of neck entrapment and provided improved restraint for the dummy within the seat. Although there may be a slight increase in head acceleration, HIC₁₅, and chest acceleration, the FBS still ensures that injury responses remain within acceptable safety limits in most cases. Results propose that FBS are innovative and practical, with the capacity to enhance the protection of children in frontal accidents.