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Many rollover safety researches have been conducted experimentally and analytically to investigate the underlying causes of vehicle accidents and develop rollover test procedures and test methodologies to help understand the nature of rollover crash events. In addition, electronic and/or mechanical instrumentation are used in dummy and vehicle to measure their responses that allow both vehicle kinematics study and occupant injury assessment. However, method for measurement of dynamic structural deformation needs further exploration, and means to monitor vehicle-to-ground contact load is still lacking. Thus, this paper presents a method for determining the vehicle-to-ground load during laboratory-based rollover tests using results obtained from a camera-matching photogrammetric technology as inputs to a FE SUV model using a nonlinear crash analysis code.

Knee injuries represent about 10% of all injuries suffered during car crashes. Efforts to assess the injury risk to the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) have been based on a study available in the literature (Viano et al., 1978), in which only two of the five knees tested had PCL ruptures. The aims of the current study were to repeat the study with a higher number of samples, study the effects of other soft tissues on knee response, and assess the adequacy of the experimental setup for the identification of a PCL tolerance. A total of 14 knees were tested using a high-speed materials testing machine. Eight were intact knees (with the patella and all the muscular and ligamentous structures), three were PCL-only knees (patella and all the muscular and ligamentous structures other than the PCL removed), and the last three were PCL-only knees with the tibia protected from bending fracture.

Numerical analyses frequently accompany experimental investigations that study injury biomechanics and improvements in automotive safety. Limited by computational speed, earlier mathematical models tended to simplify the system under study so that a set of differential equations could be written and solved. Advances in computing technology and analysis software have enabled the development of many sophisticated models that have the potential to provide a more comprehensive understanding of human impact response, injury mechanisms, and tolerance. In this article, 50 years of publications on numerical modeling published in the Stapp Car Crash Conference Proceedings and Journal were reviewed. These models were based on: (a) author-developed equations and software, (b) public and commercially available programs to solve rigid body dynamic models (such as MVMA2D, CAL3D or ATB, and MADYMO), and (c) finite element models.

Three-dimensional film analysis was used to study the response of the shoulder and thoracic skeleton of cadavers to lateral sled tests conducted at Wayne State University. The response of the shoulder structure was of particular interest, although, it is perhaps the most difficult skeletal structure to track in a side impact. Results of the three-dimensional film analysis are given for rigid impacts at 6.7 and 9.1 meters per second, and for padded impacts averaging 9 meters per second. Results from a two-dimensional film analysis are included for the impacted clavicle which could not be tracked by the three-dimensional film analysis. Displacements at various locations on the shoulder and thoracic skeleton were normalized to estimate the response of a fiftieth percentile male.

Twelve unembalmed human cadavers were tested for lower abdominal injury tolerance and mechanical response. The impacts were in an anterior-to-posterior direction and the level of impact was primarily in the lower abdomen at the L3 level of the lumbar spine. The impactor mass was either 32 kg or 64 kg. The impactor face was a 25 mm diameter aluminum bar, with the long axis of the bar parallel to the width of the cadaver body. In this paper, mechanical response is presented in terms of force-time and penetration-time histories, and force vs. abdominal penetration cross-plots. Injury tolerance is described in terms of post-impact necropsy findings and AIS ratings. Based on our studies, the lower abdomen of the unembalmed human cadaver is much less stiff than is suggested by previous research, and the stiffness is velocity and mass dependent, as is suggested by the correlation coefficients presented in this paper. Force-time history and force-penetration response corridors are presented.

Human tolerance data have been acquired gradually over the past 25 years and are available for several body regions. There is now sufficient information to design restraint systems which can prevent serious injuries to the user and which have low injury-causing potential. This paper reviews recent research on injury mechanisms and injury tolerance. Most of the research was aimed at solving problems in automotive safety systems. Specific tolerance data for the following body regions are presented: head, chest, spine and lower extremities.