When technology, car safety, go on a ‘collision course’

(First in a series)

YOU have to experience Japan’s seasonal weather in order to appreciate it.

When our small group of Philippine motoring media arrived in Yokohama last Aug. 27, the advisory was “sunny, hot and humid.” But in the next few days, a typhoon came.

It turns out that August and September is the peak season for typhoons in Japan, which is not much different from what we experience in the Philippines. And in between these tropical cyclones is the calm but incredibly hot, humid weather.

It’s this contrasting meteorological pattern that has been accepted, and embraced, by a highly civilized, highly tolerant Japanese society (and yes, you have to be amongst the Japanese people in their own country to fully appreciate how “evolved” their way of life is).

Calm weather is always interrupted by storms, or looking at it another way, stormy weather is always interrupted by calm. There is order in chaos, and chaos in order.

During the three days that we visited the various facilities of the world’s largest automaker Toyota Motor Corp., we realized that the way to study—and gain wisdom from—the science of motoring safety and technology would be to look at it like the weather: order in chaos, chaos in order.

This was highly evident when our group visited the Higashi-Fuji Research and Development Technical Center in Susono, Shizuoka, Japan. In this facility, Toyota vehicles are subjected to an oblique frontal crash test.

During our visit, a 2.5-ton trolley was made to run up to 90 kph before colliding with a Prius at an oblique angle. We watched the crash test demo from start to finish, and despite knowing that there were no warm bodies inside the car, I did feel a sense of impending doom in my stomach as the Prius approached a pre-arranged, destructive, chaotic end.

In a split second, the calm of its existence was interrupted—permanently—for the science of safety.

In this research and development facility, Toyota vehicles are subjected to crash tests 600 times a year, making this probably the most “accident-prone” spot in the world for a Toyota. Fortunately, no one has ever died during these collision tests.

1.25 million road deaths

But we can’t say the same in the real world. At the Toyota Technology media presentation held at the same facility on Aug. 29, TMC showed the grim stats in Asia: In Indonesia and Malaysia, there are 3.1 traffic-related deaths for every 10,000 automobiles; in Thailand, it’s 2.8.

The World Health Organization gives an even grimmer picture: 1.25 million people around the world die every year due to vehicular crashes. That’s equivalent to 5,000 jetliners carrying 250 souls each crashing every year, or about 14 planes crashing a day.

The figures were more than enough to prompt the Japanese government to formulate a road safety policy framework as early as the 1970s.

According to TMC’s Akira Kanatani, the first fundamental traffic safety program was adopted under the multi-minister approach. The program outlined traffic safety measures related to infrastructure (maintaining the road traffic environment, rescue capability in emergency situations), road users (spreading traffic safety knowledge in schools, local communities, driver’s license schools, automobile manufacturers, the Japan Automobile Federation and consumer organizations; enforcement and maintenance of road safety order) and vehicles (securing safety performance of road transport vehicles, optimizing compensation for damages).

“Over the years, measures related to infrastructure, road users and vehicles have led to a decrease in traffic fatalities,” said Kanatani.

And what dramatic decrease. This multi-pronged approach has helped lower the number of fatalities caused by traffic accidents to just 0.6 deaths for every 10,000 automobiles in Japan.

TMC believes it has done its part to help the Japanese government reduce the fatality numbers. Seigo Kuzumaki, TMC assistant chief for safety technology office, reveals that Toyota has developed a “holistic approach” to safety, as embodied in its three-part initiative: vehicles (development and evaluation), people (accident investigation and analysis) and traffic environment (simulation).

The facility at Higashi-Fuji has helped immensely in achieving these holistic results, many thanks to a “victim,” silent and ever willing, to go on its last trip every time.

THUMS up

We met THUMS (the acronym for Total Human Model for Safety), and its 80 other companions at a storage room in the Higashi-Fuji facility.

They were crash test dummies, ranging in size and weight from a child to a fully grown adult human.

In 1997, TMC and Toyota Central R&D Labs Inc. developed the first batch of THUMS models because regular crash test dummies could not simulate actual injuries to the human body in a vehicle collision.

What TMC and its research labs did was to apply all the technological resources at its disposal to create accurate computer simulations of the impact that crashes have on people of different sizes—on their internal organs, muscle tissue, bones, muscle action and the like.

In short, THUMS is the “intelligent” dummy, a “dead” crash test victim telling its tale in zeroes and ones, helping put order and reason in the chaos and violence of a vehicular collision.

TMC explains that, essentially, what comes out of a crash test with a THUMS-equipped dummy inside provides enough crucial information to help develop safety technology and systems for real-world situations.

Each THUMS model can cost between 18 million to 100 million yen (P8 million to P45 million). The more human-like the dummy is equipped, the more expensive it becomes.

THUMS is able to achieve highly accurate simulations via the use of high-resolution CT scan images of living human subjects; finite element modeling of body parts (skull, brain); integration into whole body model (connections, contacts) such as lungs, liver, artery, heart, spleen, large intestine, small intestine; and definition of material property for each body part.

The validation of mechanical response where done (literature on impact biomechanics, loading tests on post mortem human subjects), and whole body kinetics are also verified in vehicle collision conditions (frontal, lateral, rear, and pedestrian impact, even the type of vehicle hitting the pedestrian).

THUMS seeks to understand injury mechanisms in vehicle collisions, and to estimate the effectiveness of vehicle safety technologies.

After the crash test, we were invited to inspect what remained of the Prius. Interestingly, I saw that all the airbags were deployed, and the legroom for both the driver and passenger was still there.

Later on, TMC explained that the test demonstrated the effectiveness of its new global architecture applied to its new vehicles, from the Prius onwards, that had a new collision safety body structure.

The crash test also illustrated the safety of the electric systems of the Prius hybrid. Prius engineers performed three steps: 1) placing the high-voltage battery in a location where body-rigidity is high; 2) keeping high-voltage battery ungrounded; and 3) isolating the high-voltage wires using insulating coating cover.

In the instance of a crash, the system blocks the high-voltage power supply by relay.

TMC explained that this safety system would probably be why, despite increasing hybrid vehicle sales worldwide, accidents caused by electric shock in crashes have never happened.

So close to reality

Another highlight of our visit to the Higashi-Fuji facility was the 360-degree wrap-around virtual environment driving simulator dome, which provides researchers as accurate a simulation as possible of a driver’s behavior on the road.

The giant dome’s spherical screen took up the entire interior of the simulator. And once the simulated drive started, it felt so real that when our “car” was about to hit a truck or a pedestrian, even the male journalists among us couldn’t stop shrieking.

The driver sits in an actual car placed inside the dome measuring 7.1 meters in diameter, and performs driving operations while video is projected onto the spherical screen.

The dome is moved by one of the world’s largest simulation apparatuses—35 meters high, 20 meters wide—composed of a turntable, tilt system, vibration actuator and other devices capable of realistically simulating turns and any number of other driving maneuvers.

The end result for the driver—and passengers—is the actual sensation of driving and riding in a moving car. Even the actual sounds of the engine and the driving environment are generated.

This driving simulator is highly restricted, and only 104 drivers so far have participated in the simulation tests. At one point, drivers are asked to touch an icon on the small screen, and is meant to see how they behave when distracted.

The simulator aims to measure drivers’ behavior in various conditions and state of alertness (such as when the driver is drowsy, inattentive, distracted, intoxicated, fatigued, or ill).

It also evaluates the effectiveness and sustainability of integrating driver-warning and vehicle control systems for reducing the number of traffic accidents, so as to verify the effects of active safety technology. All that without the car actually moving an inch.

After the chaos in the simulator, the driver and passengers see themselves—and the car—still in order, and in one piece.

(To be continued)