Crashworthiness

Different criteria are used to figure out how safe a structure is in a crash, depending on the type of impact and the vehicle involved.

Crashworthiness may be assessed either prospectively, using computer models (e.g., RADIOSS, LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH, MSC Dytran, MADYMO) or experiments, or retrospectively, by analyzing crash outcomes.

Work began to develop energy-absorbing seats to reduce the chance of spinal injuries[1] during training and combat in Vietnam.

[6] Crashworthiness was greatly improved in the 1970s with the fielding of the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and the Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters.

Airbags were considered a viable solution to reducing the incidents of head strikes in the cockpit, in Army helicopters.