Quantifying the Kinematics of Injury Biomechanics: Several Applications Incorporating Human Volunteers and Surrogates

Abstract

Nearly 27,000 vehicle occupants are killed annually in the United States, with passenger car and light truck occupants amassing 25,000 of these. Over 50% of passenger car and light truck occupant fatalities are due to frontal crashes. Although advancements in safety technology have reduced the number of fatalities and injuries, motor vehicle collisions are still a major issue in the United States. Continued development of computational models and biofidelic anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) necessitates benchmarking of current surrogates and further analysis of an occupant's biomechanical response in automobile collisions. This thesis presents data from low-speed frontal sled tests performed with human volunteers, a Hybrid III 50th percentile male ATD, and post mortem human surrogates (PMHSs). The first study sought to investigate the effects of muscle bracing by human volunteers. The second study sought to compare the responses of the relaxed and braced volunteers in the first study to those of the Hybrid III and PMHS subjects. Overall, these two studies provide novel biomechanical data that can be used to refine and validate computational models and ATDs used to assess injury risk in automotive collisions. The third study was focused on quantifying the ability for children to swing a sword-like toy. Over 200,000 toy-related injuries occur every year in the United States. Currently, data is unavailable with regard to sword-like toys. Incorporating the knowledge gained by this study will allow manufacturers to reduce the inherent risks associated with their products as well as market them to the correct target age groups.