Search Results

Thirty-six lateral PMHS sled tests were performed at 6.7 or 8.9 m/s, under rigid or padded loading conditions and with a variety of impact surface geometries. Forces between the simulated vehicle environment and the thorax, abdomen, and pelvis, as well as torso deflections and various accelerations were measured and scaled to the average male. Mean ± one standard deviation corridors were calculated. PMHS response corridors for force, torso deflection and acceleration were developed. The offset test condition, when partnered with the flat wall condition, forms the basis of a robust battery of tests that can be used to evaluate how an ATD interacts with its environment, and how body regions within the ATD interact with each other.

A new biofidelity assessment system is being developed and applied to three side impact dummies: the WorldSID-α, the ES-2 and the SID-HIII. This system quantifies (1) the ability of a dummy to load a vehicle as a cadaver does, “External Biofidelity,” and (2) the ability of a dummy to replicate those cadaver responses that best predict injury potential, “Internal Biofidelity.” The ranking system uses cadaver and dummy responses from head drop tests, thorax and shoulder pendulum tests, and whole body sled tests. Each test condition is assigned a weight factor based on the number of human subjects tested to form the biomechanical response corridor and how well the biofidelity tests represent FMVSS 214, side NCAP (SNCAP) and FMVSS 201 Pole crash environments.

Little is known about the response of the shoulder complex due to lateral and oblique loading. Increasing this knowledge of shoulder response due to these types of loading could aid in improving the biofidelity of the shoulder mechanisms of anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs). The first objective of this study was to define force versus deflection corridors for the shoulder corresponding to both lateral and oblique loading. A second focus of the shoulder research was to study the differences in potential injury between oblique and lateral loading. These objectives were carried out by combining previously published lateral impact data from 24 tests along with 14 additional recently completed lateral and oblique tests. The newly completed tests utilized a pneumatic ram to impact the shoulder of approximately fiftieth percentile sized cadavers at the level of the glenohumeral joint with a constant speed of approximately 4.4 m/sec.