The purpose of this upgrade in the test setup was to make side impact testing more representative of real-life vehicle behaviour under crash conditions.
The AE-MDB has been adopted by EuroNCAP and will replace the Advanced-2000 in 2015. It is intended to be used alongside the new WorldSID dummy. This barrier uses the same manufacturing principles as the current side impact barrier, the Advanced-2000. Various crush forces, progressively changing throughout the barrier, characterise each single block. This is achieved by a special manufacturing process of differential etching of the honeycomb, pioneered by Cellbond in 1994.
