Design of a Modified Chest for EUROSID Providing Biofidelity and Injury Assessment 890881

The purpose of this study was to replace the axial deforming elements in the current EUROSID dummy with spring steel ribs and attached damping material to provide improved biofidelity in the lateral chest impact response. This report provides a description of the design, construction, and evaluation of the modified EUROSID chest for injury assessment in side impact crashes.

Three spring steel ribs were designed to provide stiffness and deflections of 120 mm when attached to the block on the spine of the EUROSID dummy. Damping material was epoxied to the ribs and the system provided biofidelity in the lateral impact response for blunt impact loading at 4.3 m/s and 6.7 m/s. The new design provides significantly reduced inertia of the near side rib cage, elastic and viscous properties that are representative of the lateral human response and the ability to measure the deflection response of the rib cage for injury assessment with the Viscous response. Testing has shown that the modified design has biofidelity and can be used for injury assessment of side interior modifications for occupant protection.