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Far-side side impact loading of a seat belt restrained occupant has been shown to lead to torso slip out of the shoulder belt. A pretensioned seat belt may provide an effective countermeasure to torso rollout; however the effectiveness may vary with age due to increased flexibility of the pediatric spine compared to adults. To explore this effect, low-speed lateral (90°) and oblique (60°) sled tests were conducted using male human volunteers (20 subjects: 9-14 years old, 10 subjects: 18-30 years old), in which the crash pulse safety envelope was defined from an amusement park bumper-car impact. Each subject was restrained by a lap and shoulder belt system equipped with an electromechanical motorized seat belt retractor (EMSR) and photo-reflective targets were attached to a tight-fitting headpiece or adhered to the skin overlying key skeletal landmarks.

Previous research has suggested that the pediatric ATD spine, developed from scaling the adult ATD spine, may not adequately represent a child's spine and thus may lead to important differences in the ATD head trajectory relative to a human. To gain further insight into this issue, the objectives of this study were, through non-injurious frontal sled tests on human volunteers, to 1) quantify the kinematic responses of the restrained child's head and spine and 2) compare pediatric kinematic responses to those of the adult. Low-speed frontal sled tests were conducted using male human volunteers (20 subjects: 6-14 years old, 10 subjects: 18-40 years old), in which the safety envelope was defined from an amusement park bumper-car impact.

Accurate pediatric thoracic force and deflection data are critical to develop biofidelic pediatric anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) used in designing motor vehicle safety systems for child occupants. Typically, postmortem human subject (PMHS) experiments are conducted to gather such data. However, there are few pediatric PMHS available for impact research; therefore, novel methods are required to determine pediatric biomechanical data from children. In this study, we have leveraged the application of chest compressions provided in the clinical environment during pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to collect this fundamental data. The maximum deflection of the chest during CPR is in the range of chest deflections in PMHS impact experiments and therefore CPR exercises the chest in ways that are meaningful for biofidelity assessment. Thus, the goal of this study was to measure the force-deflection characteristics of the thorax of children and young adults during CPR.

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.