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Stapp Car Crash Journal, Vol. 62 (November 2018), pp. 359-377
Copyright © 2018 The Stapp Association
Side Impact Assessment and Comparison of Appropriate Size and
Age Equivalent Porcine Surrogates to Scaled Human
Side Impact Response Biofidelity Corridors
Jennifer L. Yaek, Christopher J. Andrecovich, John M. Cavanaugh
Wayne State University
Stephen W. Rouhana
Vehicle Safety Sciences, LLC (Ford Retired)
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ABSTRACT – Analysis and validation of current scaling relationships and existing response corridors using animal surrogate test
data is valuable, and may lead to the development of new or improved scaling relationships. For this reason, lateral pendulum
impact testing of appropriate size cadaveric porcine surrogates of human 3-year-old, 6-year-old, 10-year-old, and 50
th
percentile
male age equivalence, were performed at the thorax and abdomen body regions to compare swine test data to already established
human lateral impact response corridors scaled from the 50
th
percentile human adult male to the pediatric level to establish viability
of current scaling laws. Appropriate Porcine Surrogate Equivalents PSE for the human 3-year-old, 6-year-old, 10-year-old, and 50
th
percentile male, based on whole body mass, were established. A series of lateral impact thorax and abdomen pendulum testing was
performed based on previously established scaled lateral impact assessment test protocols. The PSE thorax and abdominal impact
response data were assessed against previously established scaled human thorax lateral impact response corridors and scaled
abdominal oblique impact response corridors for the 3-year-old, 6-year-old, 10-year-old, and 50
th
percentile human male based on
lateral pendulum impact testing. The overall findings of the current study confirm that lateral impact force response of the thorax
and abdomen of appropriate weight porcine surrogates established for human-equivalent-age 3-year-old, 6-year-old, 10-year-old,
and 50
th
adult male are consistent with the previously established human scaled lateral impact response corridors). Porcine
surrogate biomechanics testing can prove to be a powerful research means to further characterize and understand injury and
response in lateral impact.
KEYWORDS – Lateral Impact, Thorax, Abdomen, Scaling, Biofidelity, Response Corridor, Side Impact, Pediatric, ATD
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INTRODUCTION
Due to a paucity of pediatric post-mortem human
subjects (PMHS) for use in testing over history,
researchers have had to consider other avenues to help
establish response corridors for child crash test
dummy design and development. Response corridor
development is central to establishing anthropometric
test device (ATD) response similar to that of humans.
Normalization of data can be described as the method
by which measured impact responses from individual
specimen tests with variable characteristics are
brought into a standard. Scaling, particularly in impact
biomechanics, can be used as a process to convert
normalized response data from one standard group to
another; for example, mid-size male lateral impact
response corridor data to the pediatric population
(Petitjean et. al, 2015).
Normalization and scaling of response data has been
an indirect technique used for many years to establish
pediatric response biofidelity corridors for crash test
dummy design and development, both through scaling
of adult PMHS data and animal surrogate test data to
the pediatric level. Eppinger (1976), in evaluating
PMHS thoracic impact data from several different
sources, used a basic linear normalization approach
(labeled a “scaling approach” by the authors) which
assumed linear relationships between the central
constraints of length, mass, and time as well as equal
density and modulus of elasticity between the mass
and its reference (dummy).
Mertz (1984) derived an impulse-momentum
normalization technique for specific body regions
based on segment characteristics and type of impact
test. This approach used mass and stiffness ratios
along with assumptions of lumped mass and spring
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