RCs (Reverberation Chambers) has historically been used mainly for aerospace and military purposes in EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) testing, but the interest also seems to increase in the automotive industry (the development of an international standard for vehicles is in progress). The vehicles of the future will most likely be electrified, wirelessly connected and autonomous, i.e., more control units, more communication systems, and more sensors, will be implemented in the vehicles requiring increased robustness against all possible electromagnetic interferences. EMC testing in an RC is a step in the direction of ensuring this robustness for the future vehicle platforms. Compared to a traditional EMC test method in a fully or semi-AC (Anechoic Chamber), testing in an RC has the advantage that the electromagnetic field will be isotropic, randomly polarized and homogeneous in a statistical sense, i.e., the exposed object will be surrounded by electromagnetic energy from all directions. It can be considered relatively expensive to build a brand new RC with motorized stirrers and associated measurement instrumentation, instead it would be desirable to perform immunity tests in a more cost-effective conductive fabric tent. The great advantage is the flexibility, the tent can be set up almost anywhere, even in already existing semi-ACs, such set-up is referred to as VIRC (Vibrating Intrinsic Reverberation Chamber). This thesis aims to develop a new test method in a VIRC environment. In order to achieve good RC conditions, the electromagnetic field must be statistically Rayleigh distributed. Furthermore, it is of great importance to avoid LoS (Line of Sight) between the antenna and the test object, and to achieve good stirring in the tent. Provided this can be achieved, there are still some challenges by testing in a tent. For example, the classical dwell time of two seconds for immunity testing in EMC is not possible to achieve in a VIRC environment. The validation in this thesis shows that the dwell time or the total exposure time in the tent might be enough to trigger possible malfunctions in today's modern high-speed communication vehicles. Furthermore, it is showed, testing in a VIRC gives good field uniformity and repeatability, and can trigger malfunctions that are not triggered in traditional EMC testing in semi-AC, i.e., ALSE (Absorber-Lined Shielded Enclosure) testing.

The interior of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) differs from passenger cars. Both the steering wheel and the occupant are positioned differently in a HGV and increases the risk of steering wheel rim impacts. Such impact scenarios are relatively unexplored compared to passenger car safety studies that are more prevalent within the field of injury biomechanics. The idea with using human body models (HBMs) is to complement current crash test dummies with biomechanical data. Furthermore, the biofidelity of a crash dummy for loading similar to a steering wheel rimimpact is relatively unstudied and especially to different rib levels. Therefore, the aim with this thesis was to evaluate HGV occupant thoracic response between THUMS v4.0 and Hybrid III (H3) during steering wheel rim impacts with respect to different rib levels (level 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 7-8, 9-10) with regards to ribs, aorta, liver, and spleen. To the author’s best knowledge, use of local injury risk functions for thoracic injuries is fairly rare compared to the predominant usage of global injury criteria that mainly predicts the most commonthoracic injury risk, i.e. rib fractures. Therefore, local injury criteria using experimental test datahave been developed for the ribs and the organs. The measured parameters were chest deflectionand steering wheel to thorax contact force on a global level, whilst 1st principal Green-Lagrangestrains was assessed for the rib and the organ injury risk. The material models for the liver and the spleen were remodelled using an Ogden material model based on experimental stress-strain data to account for hyperelasticity. Rate-dependency was included by iteration of viscoelastic parameters. The contact modelling of the organs was changed from a sliding contact to a tied contact to minimize unrealistic contact separations during impact. The results support previous findings that H3 needs additional instrumentation to accurately register chest deflection for rib levels beyond its current range, namely at ribs 1-2, 7-8, and 9-10. For THUMS, the chest deflection were within reasonable values for the applied velocities, but there were no definite injury risk. Fact is, the global injury criteria might overpredict the AIS3 injury risk (rib fractures) for rib level 1-2, 7-8, and 9-10. The rib strains could not be correlated with the measured chest deflections. This was explained by the unique localized loading characterized by pure steering wheel rim impact that mainly affected the sternum and the rib cartilage while minimizing rib deformation. The organ strains indicate some risk of rupture where the spleen deforms the most at rib levels 3-4 and 6-7, and the liver and the aorta at rib levels 6-7 and 7-8. This study provides a framework for complementing H3 with THUMS for HGV occupant safety with emphasis on the importance of using local injury criteria for functional injury prediction, i.e. prediction of injury risk using parameters directly related to rib fracture or organ rupture. Local injury criteria are thus a powerful safety assessment tool as it is independent on exterior loading such as airbag, steering wheel hub, or seat belt loading. It was noticed that global injury criteria with very localized impacts such as rim impacts have not been studied and will affect rib fracture risk differently than what has been studied using airbag or seat belt restraints. However, improvements are needed to accurately predict thoracic injury risk at a material level by finding more data for the local injury risk functions. Conclusively, it is clear that Hybrid III has insufficient instrumentation and is in need of upgrades to register chest deflections at multiple rib levels. Furthermore, the following are needed: better understanding of global injury criteria specific for HGV occupant safety evaluation, more data for age-dependent (ribs) and rate-dependent (organs) injury risk functions, a tiebreak contact with tangential sliding for better organ kinematics during impacts, and improving the biofidelity of the material models using data from tissue level experiments. / Förarmiljön i lastbilar gentemot personbilar är annorlunda, i detta kontext med avseende på främst ratt- och förarposition som ökar risken för islag med rattkransen för lastbilsförare. Sådana islag är relativt outforskat jämfört med passiv säkerhet för personbilar inom skadebiomekaniken. Tanken bakom användning av humanmodeller är att komplettera nuvarande krockdockor med biomekanisk information. Dessutom är biofideliteten hos en krockdocka vid rattislag relativt okänt, speciellt vid olika revbensnivåer. Därför är målet med detta examensarbete att undersöka thoraxresponsen hos en lastbilsförare genom att använda THUMS v4.0 och Hybrid III (H3) under rattislag med avseende på revbensnivåer (nivå 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 7-8, och 9-10) och revben, aorta, lever, och mjälte. Enligt författaren verkar användning av lokala riskfunktioner för thoraxskador relativt ostuderat jämfört med den övervägande användningen av globala riskfunktioner som huvudsakligen förutser den mest vanligt förekommande thoraxskadan, nämligen revbensfrakturer. Därför har lokala riskfunktioner skapats för revben och organ, baserat på experimentell data. Uppmätta parametrar var bröstinträngning och kontaktkraft mellan ratt och thorax på global nivå, medan första Green-Lagrange huvudtöjningen användes för att evaluera skaderisken för revben och organ. Materialmodeller för lever och mjälte ommodellerades baserat på experimentell spänning-töjningsdata med Ogdens materialmodell för att ta hänsyn till hyperelasticitet. Töjningshastighetsberoendet inkluderades genom att iterera fram viskoelastiska parametrar. Kontaktmodellering av organ gjordes genom att ändra från glidande kontakt till en låsande kontakt för att minimera orealistisk kontaktseparation under islagsfallen. Resultaten stödjer tidigare studier där H3 visat sig behöva ytterligare givare för att noggrannt kunna registrera bröstinträngning vid olika revbensnivåer bortom dess nuvarande räckvidd, nämligen vid revben 1-2, 7-8, och 9-10. Uppmätt bröstinträngning i THUMS var rimliga för hastighetsfallen men gav inte någon definitiv risk för skada. Faktum är att de globala riskfunktionerna kan överskatta AIS3 risken vid revben 1-2, 7-8, och 9-10. Revbenstöjningarna kunde inte korreleras med bröstinträngningarna. Detta kunde förklaras genom de unika lastfallen som karakteriseras av rena rattislag som främst påverkar sternum och revbensbrosk som i sin tur minimerar deformation av revben. Organtöjningarna indikerar på någon risk för ruptur där mjälten deformerar som mest vid revben 3-4 och 6-7, medan för både levern och aortan sker det vid revben 6-7 och 7-8. Denna studie presenterar ett sätt att komplettera H3 med THUMS inom passiv säkerhet för lastbilsförare med fokus på lokala riskfunktioner för funktionell skadeprediktering dvs. prediktering av skaderisken med hjälp av parametrar som är direkt relaterat till revbensfraktur eller organruptur. Lokala riskfunktioner utgör en kraftfull säkerhetsbedömning som är oberoende av externa lastfall som t.ex. airbag, rattcentrum, eller bälteslast. I denna studie noterades det att de globala riskkriterierna inte har undersökts med väldigt lokala islag som rattislagen utgör och kommer därför att påverka risken för revbensfraktur annorlunda gentemot vad som har studerat, t.ex. airbag eller bältelast. Däremot behövs det mer data för de lokala riskkriterierna för att kunna prediktera thoraxskaderisken med ökad noggrannhet. Avslutningsvis, det är tydligt att Hybrid III har otillräckligt med givare och behöver förbättras för att kunna registrera bröstinträngning vid flera revbensnivåer. Vidare behövs följande: bättre förståelse för globala riskfunktioner anpassat inom passiv säkerhet för lastbilsförare, mer data för åldersberoende (revben) och töjningshastighetsberoende (organ) riskfunktioner, en ”tiebreak” kontakt med tangientiell glidning för bättre organkinematik, och ökad biofidelitet av materialmodeller genom att använda data från vävnadsexperiment.

As the automotive industry advances through technology integration, components are designed to operate at increasingly higher frequencies. Consequently, there will be an increasing demand for automotive electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing. Testing and certification institutes, such as RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB, thus face an urgent need to develop innovative solutions that can effectively address this growing demand. This master thesis work concerns one EMC test method in particular - the On-board Transmitter (OBT). This is a test which mainly serves to test the immunity of vehicles to electromagnetic disturbances originating from hand-held devices. The conventional test is performed in an anechoic chamber and the methodology requires a substantial amount of time. The intent with this work is thus to evaluate the potential of a novel OBT method where the concept of a reverberating chamber is applied inside the vehicle compartment. Initially, the conventional method was examined from two mock-ups of idealized cases, and it was observed that the electromagnetic field in the near-field region of the transmitter is highly erratic. It was also concluded that the test setup is particularly sensitive to the polarization of the transmitter. With these findings in mind, the accuracy of the conventional method was deemed questionable. Evaluation of the proposed Reverberating On-board Transmitter (ROBT) method proved that the electromagnetic environment inside the vehicle did not resemble a perfect reverberation chamber. Which was expected as the absorbing material such as seating and upholstery likely prevents a field distribution similar to that in a reverberation chamber. Still, the intent of the project was to find a test method superior to the conventional method and it can be stated that the ROBT method is an adequate option due to its capacity to expose the electronics to isotropic radiation. This was found from two measures which this thesis introduces: expected isotropicity eiso, a relative measure of the electric field components and DDoF, a quantification of the spatial distribution inside a reverberation chamber. / EMC VERifiering av Autonoma fordon i modväxlad kammare (EMCVERA)