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Engineering Research

Childhood injuries can seem random, senseless and incomprehensible. At the Center for Injury Research and Prevention, our engineers are pinpointing and assessing the causes of these injuries to reduce the likelihood of recurrence. The goal of our scientists is to translate field data into improved products for children.

Following deliberate identification of issues through the Center’s surveillance methods, engineers conduct field investigation to determine injury sources and mechanisms. Scientists translate those data into computer models and laboratory tests that simulate real world crashes so that additional scenarios can be explored. The end result is industry-relevant information and increased clinical knowledge.

There are three dimensions to the Center’s engineering approach:

• Field investigation, in which the Center’s crash investigation team goes into the field to study actual crashes involving children and adolescents.
• Injury biomechanics research, which provides quantitative data on how children respond to forces and accelerations experienced in injury- causing events, such as motor-vehicle crashes.
• Computational modeling, in which the Center’s computational engineers create multidimensional computer models that replicate a child and his kinematics in crash simulations, based on the real world results explored in field investigation and the injury biomechanics laboratory.

The Center’s engineers provide valuable insights to vehicle and restraint manufacturers, as well as federal regulating agencies, as to ways to improve product designs to better protect children.

Through an annual manufacturers’ briefing conference for the automotive industry, regular presentation of research at scientific meetings and regular dialogue with the safety engineering community, Center researchers ensure that their findings are heard and quickly translated into improved safety design for children. In order to do this, Center researchers have developed a number of sophisticated research tools.

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Engineering-Focused Programs and Networks

• Crash Investigation Research and Engineering Network (CIREN)

  In 2005, the Center was awarded a five-year contract from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to serve as the only site primarily focused on pediatric occupants in the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN). A multidisciplinary research affiliation of clinicians and engineers in academia, industry and government, CIREN’s mission is to improve the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of motor-vehicle crash injuries, thus reducing deaths, disabilities and human and economic costs through the study of real-world cases of serious injuries sustained in car crashes. Pooling data from eight network trauma centers nationwide, CIREN provides a rich database for analysis, forming the basis for potentially life-changing tools and technologies.

• Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS)

  Through the Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS), researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania work side-by-side with industry to conduct translational research that is practical to industry. CChIPS is a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) that focuses exclusively on making children and adolescents safer. The CChIPS method applies the science of biomechanical epidemiology to the analysis of crash-related data. Biomechanical epidemiology is a unique and comprehensive approach that integrates the principles of engineering, behavioral science and epidemiology into study designs. Faculty members maintain an ongoing dialogue with major child-safety organizations throughout the world and are engaged in specific research partnerships with leading automotive manufacturers, restraint suppliers, insurance providers and government agencies.

• Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS)

  The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and State Farm Insurance® Companies joined forces in 1997 to form Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS). Today, PCPS is the world’s largest child-focused motor-vehicle crash surveillance system, and its findings are recognized worldwide. PCPS applies the Center for Injury Research and Prevention’s interdisciplinary approach to studying injury from many perspectives to determine the most effective ways to improve child safety in motor-vehicle crashes.

• NHTSA Indefinite Quantities Contract: Building on the Findings of Partners for Child Passenger Safety

  The Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS) database is the largest available source of information on children in motor vehicle crashes. As a result, the PCPS database is an ideal source data for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to use in determining regulation and policy. NHTSA currently provides funding for the Center to conduct research several “Task Orders” across a wide range of research topics including: Abdominal injury to seat belt-restrained children; improving anthropomorphic test dummies (ATD) to more accurately represent the biokinetics of a human child; examining the risk of injury to center-rear seated children using lap-only or lap-shoulder belts; restraint use patterns based on vehicle model and year; effectiveness of built-in child restraint systems; and developing interventions to improve booster seat use in at-risk populations.

• Bicycle Handlebar Project

  For more than 30 years, the danger of serious abdominal and pelvic organ injuries posed by bicycle handlebars has been known. Engineering analysis revealed that these injuries typically occur in the setting of otherwise minor incidents — falls from bicycles not involving motor vehicle crashes, during which the handlebars act as blunt spears, causing injuries on impact. To mitigate these injuries, a novel bicycle handlebar was designed and patented to reduce the forces transmitted to the child’s abdomen during an impact with the handlebars.