US Authorities Honor Autoliv Researcher

US Authorities Honor Autoliv Researcher (Stockholm, June 5, 2001) - The US agency National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has awarded the Swedish Professor Yngve Håland its Safety Engineering Excellence Award. He received the award "for unique innovations and visionary leadership in crash safety development". Professor Haland, who is Vice President of Research at the automotive safety specialist Autoliv Inc., has contributed to the safety development of virtually all areas of crash safety according to NHTSA. He was instrumental in developing the first side impact airbag, which was launched in 1994 in cooperation with Volvo. This innovation will be installed in over 15 million vehicles this year alone. This airbag for chest protection is expected to annually save some 2000 lives per year when all vehicles in the US and Europe are equipped with the side airbag. The innovation was based on professor Håland's doctoral thesis "Car-to-Car Side Impacts". Professor Håland is also an innovator of the Inflatable Curtain. This side airbag for head protection was introduced in 1998 on Mercedes and Volvo cars. It is currently being introduced in most cars in Europe, North America and Japan. The Inflatable Curtain will also be used for rollover protection by keeping the occupant inside the vehicle, if the vehicle experiences a roll. 25% of the fatalities on US roads are due to rollover crashes. This alarming statistic is why Yngve Håland initiated a research project, together with the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, to develop a silicon-based rollover sensor. This sensor allows the sensing system to identify when a vehicle is in an imminent rollover condition (in some cases when all four wheels are still in contact with the ground). Professor Håland's other primary area of interest is whiplash and other injuries to the neck. His research team has developed a method for measuring the stress to the neck in accidents that can cause whiplash injuries in rear-end collisions. The Neck Injury Criterion (NIC) that his team proposed in 1996 is now used globally. This research also led to an anti-whiplash system that was introduced in 1998 together with Volvo. Yngve Håland is an Associate Professor at the Chalmers University of Technology. The scientific cooperation he has established with Chalmers has been expanded to incorporate several other institutions working on impact biomechanics and injury mechanisms. These include the University of Birmingham, UK; the University of Virginia, USA; the Berlin Technical University, Germany; and the Morash University in Australia. Professor Håland received the Award from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV), which is the worldleading forum of its kind. The conference started yesterday in Amsterdam, Netherlands. NHTSA is the main organizer of the conference and responsible for ESV's scientific secretariat. At this year's conference Yngve Håland and his research team will present the results from their latest research project: Pedestrain protection. Photo for printing: www.autoliv.com/news Inquiries: Yngve Håland, tel +46-322-62 73 07 or +46-706-69 08 81 ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/06/05/20010605BIT00310/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/06/05/20010605BIT00310/bit0001.pdf