Belted Safety Jacket: a new concept in motorcycle passive safety

This study aims to deepen previous knowledge in Powered Two-Wheeler passive safety with an innovative approach in this field, capable to systematically explore all possible design solutions, in order to find new devices/systems able to increase rider's safety. This research results of fundamental importance because in the last years, in Italy, in Europe and in the rest of the world, the Powered Two-Wheelers (PTWs) circulating park has constantly increased. This phenomenon was strictly linked to the user's unremitting demand for mobility. Motorcycles, scooters and mopeds specifically play a significant role in cities around the world, where traffic congestion and parking spaces represent a relevant daily problem. However, PTWs inherent instability and the absence of passive safety protective devices or structures represent a challenge for road safety. Riders are at far more risk than car drivers per kilometer covered in terms of fatalities and severe injuries compared with car occupants. Moreover, although the holistic approach to safety includes different factors (e.g. safe road, improved user training, safe vehicle, etc.), protective systems are still a cornerstone to ensure more tolerance in case of riders' or other road users' errors. For this reason, ensuring safer vehicles equipped with more protective devices could help to improve the motorcyclist’s safety. • Chapter 1 presents, in the first part, a little review of the new approach to the transport safety system carried out, in the last years, by the main social institutions operating in this sector, and in the second part a statistical overview of the accident trends in the world and in specific in Europe. • Chapter 2 describes the most important parts of the reference standard (ISO 13232), used to test and assess a new protective device fitted to motorcycles and it introduces the injury mechanisms and the most common injury indexes. • Chapter 3 represents the backbone of this work and it comprises several activities: the first one is the analysis of the state of the art, carried out to understand previous research works in this sector, what is missing and where research is heading; the second one aims to understand the rider's needs, in order to translate them in device features and selection/decision criteria; the third one is the implementation of a map of possible problem solutions (NoP) using TRIZ and OTSM tools; the last one is the selection of the best solution among those found. • Chapter 4 presents the solution chosen and the F.E model of the device derived from it. This is integrated within PTW, car, dummy and helmet models into a specific crash test configuration to evaluate its rider's injury reduction capability. It also reports the implementation of a full factorial design to understand: possible device geometrical features interactions and the possibility to install the device on other PTWs. The last activity is the device geometrical optimization setup, carried out to find the best device configuration. • Chapter 5 shows how to apply the ISO 13232 methodology to an European Powered Two-Wheelers (PTWs) accidentological database, to verify if the set of the seven most relevant configurations, proposed by the ISO standard, does correspond to the most representative European accident scenarios. After this analysis, they are described the new indexes for the configurations and their speeds assessment, and finally, it is presented the impact configurations set emerged from the accidentological databases analysis. • Chapter 6, the final chapter, reports and analyzes the numerical simulation of the device into the new impact configurations set. A bio-mechanical indexes comparison for each configuration, with and without the device fitted on PTW-rider, is presented to understand the protection offered by the designed device.