Principal Investigator: Gretchen Baker, PhD, The Ohio State University

As belt-positioning boosters rely on the vehicle seat belt to provide the primary restraint of the child, boosters offer the opportunity for child occupants to benefit from other vehicle safety technologies, such as pretensioners and pre-pretensioners. With the prevalence of rear seat pretensioners expected to increase, this study aims to investigate the ability of pretensioners or pre-pretensioners to reduce initial belt gap and how this might vary with different booster belt routing designs. 

This study will include analysis of currently available crash data, a series of static laboratory tests of pretensioners/pre-pretensioners on a pediatric anthropomorphic test device (ATD) restrained on various booster conditions, and an evaluation of the influence of booster design and initial belt fit and belt gap metrics on the resulting changes in belt position due to the pretensioner/pre-pretensioner and relevant ATD kinematic and kinetic measures.