Numeric and experimental evaluation of an airbag jacket for motorcyclists

The need of passive safety devices, able to reduce the severity of injuries suffered by motorcyclists, distinctly arises from data on accident statistics. A contribution in this direction was recently provided by airbag devices fitted in riding garments, but still a standard procedure about their performance evaluation does not exist. In this paper, the effectiveness of an airbag jacket is investigated through numeric simulations and experimental tests. Two simple numeric test scenarios were conceived in order to evaluate the performance of the device; in such scenarios, an Hybrid III dummy model wearing the airbag was subjected to both front and back impacts. These scenarios were simulated at various impact speeds. In addition, two full-scale crash tests were carried out on an actual Hybrid III dummy wearing the same airbag device whose model was used in simulations. Both the full scale tests and all the simulations were repeated without the airbag, to determine the modifications caused by the device on the impact dynamics and on its severity. The two test scenarios proved themselves capable of providing useful information on the device behaviour and performance, while the airbag demonstrated itself able to significantly reduce the harm suffered by a motorcyclist from some types of impact. Though if very reduced in number, the crash tests confirmed the airbag behaviour forecasted by the simulations, supporting the numeric results and the conceived evaluation procedure.