The PIONEERS project: Protective Innovations of New Equipment for Enhanced Rider Safety

[Hot_Air]

This research could interest the Staying Alive massif: https://blog.applus.com/the-pioneers-pr ... paign=Blog

The main results of the PIONEERS project will be:

• Prioritise the most safety-critical accident scenarios and develop methods to identify relevant future safety issues.

• Develop improved injury criteria to assess the injury risk on the most critical body regions.

• Design field-effectiveness driven test methods (virtual and physical) with a high degree of reliability and repeatability to assess the current and future safety systems under realistic impact conditions and to provide input to the standarisation groups (e.g. CEN).

• Define the system requirements of the PPEs and on-board safety systems of the future for optimal rider protection.

• Develop the new generation of PPEs and on-board safety systems (prototypes).

• Assess the effectiveness of the prototype PPEs and newly developed test configurations.

• Develop advanced design tools and improved products by establishing minimum performance requirements to better inform the final user and to differentiate high-quality European products from ones that offer a lower level of protection.

It goes on to say: "During the first half of 2021, the project will test two jackets equipped with airbags from two PPE manufacturers, MOTOAIRBAG and REV’IT!. The main objective is to study their behaviour in different impact conditions to show results during the coming Working Group sessions and, if needed, propose updated recommendations to the standard."

It's beyond me why they have chosen two of the most obscure airbags. Hasn't Motoairbag disappeared into obscurity? And I hope the project isn't going to test this airbag from Rev'it: https://www.asphaltandrubber.com/produc ... echnology/

[Horse]

https://www.asphaltandrubber.com/produc ... les-pants/

[Hot_Air]

@Horse Pallacci et al. Preliminary effectiveness assessment of an airbag-based device for riders’ leg protection in side impacts. Procedia Structural Integrity, Volume 24, 2019, Pages 240-250, ISSN 2452-3216, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prostr.2020.02.021.

PTWs usually are cheaper than cars, they have lower energy consumption and fewer polluting emissions than larger vehicles. So, over the last decade there has been a significant increase of PTW circulating park. When riders are involved in an accident, legs are the most frequently injured part of the body. The aim of this paper is to assess the performance of a preliminary concept of inflatable leg protector mounted on a motorcycle. Five impact configurations were simulated in a finite element virtual environment, with the car impacting laterally on the motorcycle. Both stationary and moving motorcycle crashes were performed, while the car speed was 50km/h in every configuration. The rider was represented by a Hybrid III dummy model. Since the model was not validated for side impacts, a comparative analysis was performed. A set of safety parameters was used to assess the performance of the device. Their reduction was obtained in specific impact conditions, although mixed with load increases. Despite a widespread parameter reduction was not achieved, the results demonstrated the potential of the proposed device for lower limb protection, and they allowed the identification of the most severe conditions to be used in future development.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

The return of leg protectors?
I thought the best answer would be for the rider to wear protective trousers

[Horse]

The return of leg protectors?
I thought the best answer would be for the rider to wear protective trousers

Peter Bottomley / TRRL leg protectors were steel half cones full of foam. Dunno what your trousers are like, but...

[Horse]

[Hot_Air]

Ouch!

[Horse]

And, as recommended in The Jump article, simply standing up and putting a knee on the seat would move the riders leg away from the impact.

[Hot_Air]

I don’t know why this rider didn’t move his leg out of the way because he was no dummy

This scenario has got to be a worst case for leg protection. Even with a ‘leg airbag’, I expect the rider’s leg would be mullered.

Although I can imagine scenarios where a leg airbag could save a limb. And in this video’s scenario, a neck airbag might prevent the helmet from striking and breaking a clavicle.

I’ll be interested to see PIONEER’s results, and whether they influence the manufactures of bike clobber.

[The Spin Doctor]

I'm struggling to understand that lateral "airbag" video...

Lateral airbag.JPG (35.51 KiB) Viewed 1282 times

Is that pad at the rear of the bike supposed to be the airbag?

Or is it in the clothing?

[Hot_Air]

@The Spin Doctor Until I watched the video, I imagined the airbag would be in the clothing. But the short clip makes the airbag appear mounted on the bike.

Let's hope we get updates with more useful info. You can sign up for email updates via the PIONEERS homepage, as well as following PIONEERS on LinkedIn or follow @PIONEERS_proj on Twitter. I have no clue which of them will be most informative!

[The Spin Doctor]

@The Spin Doctor Until I watched the video, I imagined the airbag would be in the clothing. But the short clip makes the airbag appear mounted on the bike.

Let's hope we get updates with more useful info. You can sign up for email updates via the PIONEERS homepage, as well as following PIONEERS on LinkedIn or follow @PIONEERS_proj on Twitter. I have no clue which of them will be most informative!

Well, it appears to be just a solid pad of foam. There's no obvious sign of inflation.

If it inflate post-impact, your leg's already absorbed some of the crunch.

It could be triggered by some kind of proximity radar, I guess, or even a grasshopper-style antenna... but that could result in some unfortunately timed deployment mid-filter.

[Hot_Air]

It had better be magic foam because that impact looked like it would destroy most people's legs! I guess the airbag was pre-inflated, and the test was to see if it was protective against the forces involved in this accident. Despite liking airbags, I can see many accidents where they aren't sufficient to prevent injury. This video looked like one such scenario.

It might have looked like a foam pad if it was a Dainese airbag. The D-Air system has micro-filaments inside the airbag. While Dainese has the usual marketing hype (but usually the lowest airbag coverage), D-Air is the only system I know that's certified as CE Airbag Level 2. So, perhaps there's something to these micro-filaments after all.

[Horse]

Until I watched the video, I imagined the airbag would be in the clothing.

There's video in the website of a bodyworn jacket.

[Horse]

The D-Air system has micro-filaments inside the airbag. While Dainese has the usual marketing hype (but usually the lowest airbag coverage), D-Air is the only system I know that's certified as CE Airbag Level 2. So, perhaps there's something to these micro-filaments after all.

A mate has inflatable paddleboard that has filaments, farsands ov em, between the two outer surfaces.

I guess that by limiting expansion / separation in one area it restricts compression at the impact point.

[Hot_Air]

It appears the PIONEERS research could have a significant impact on our future clobber (or at least it should):
http://pioneers-project.eu/wp-content/u ... e-D3.1.pdf

Technical guys from Dainese and Rev'it are on board, which I guess means the research's findings should inform clothing design. And I see they are looking at everything from neck to ankle protection.

[Horse]

256 pages?!?!?

Give us the highlights!

[The Spin Doctor]

Dainese are one of the companies that argued long and hard with the EU Commission for the watering-down of the evidence-based CE Level 1/2 standards to give us 1) the A standard that can be passed by a pair of ordinary denims and b) a AAA standard that's much lower than level 2... so don't set your hopes too high.

[Hot_Air]

Give us the highlights!

Voilà! This blog gives you the highlights: https://blog.applus.com/the-pioneers-pr ... er-safety/

[Horse]

Give us the highlights!

Voilà! This blog gives you the highlights: https://blog.applus.com/the-pioneers-pr ... er-safety/

I hope you're a non-smoker, because no cigar.

That was written about their plans for 2021.

The main results of the PIONEERS project will be:

Ta for trying;)