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Experimental tests were performed on the modified Polar-II pedestrian dummy lower extremity components to evaluate their biofidelity in lateral impact loading corresponding to a 40 km/h pedestrian-car collision. The bending moment-angle response from a newly developed knee joint, dynamically loaded in four-point valgus bending, was compared against previously published postmortem human subject (PMHS) response corridors. In addition to the stiffness characteristics of the knee joint, individual ligament forces were also recorded during the bending tests. The evaluated force-relative elongation response of the medial collateral ligament (MCL) in the new knee was compared against PMHS data on MCL tensile stiffness. Lower extremity long bones developed for improved anthropometrical accuracy and deformability were dynamically loaded in latero-medial three-point bending.

The widespread implementation of air bags has increased the incidence of upper extremity injuries in the automotive crash environment. The first step in reducing these injuries is to determine applicable upper extremity injury criteria. The purpose of this paper is to develop injury risk functions for the fifth percentile female forearm, humerus, wrist, and elbow. Injury tolerance data for each anatomical region were gathered from experiments with controlled impact loading of disarticulated small female cadaver upper extremities. This technique allowed for the applied load to be directly quantified. All data were mass scaled to the fifth percentile female. In order to develop the risk functions, the logit distribution was integrated for the uncensored data, while logistic regression and generalized estimating equations statistical analysis techniques were used for censored data.

The objective of this study was to investigate the use of a fiber optic based sensor, ShapeTape, as an instrument for measuring abdominal and chest deflection, and to compare it to the current instrument used in impact biomechanics applications, the chestband. Drift, pressure, and temperature tests were conducted for ShapeTape alone, whereas quasi-static and dynamic loading tests were conducted as comparison tests between the chestband and ShapeTape. The effects of drift and temperature on ShapeTape were very small, averaging 0.26% and 1.2% full scale changes respectively. During the pressure test at a load of 1000 N the ShapeTape sensor tested experience a 7.47% full scale voltage change. The average errors in reporting maximum deflection of the chest form during the quasi-static loading tests were 3.35% and 1.64% for ShapeTape and the chestband respectively.