Design and Validation of the Neck for a Rear Impact Dummy (BioRID I)

Abstract

To assess the protective performance of seats and head restraints, occupant models able to mimic the motion of a human in a crash are needed. Hence, a new mechanical dummy neck for low-velocity rear collision tests was developed. The dummy neck consists of seven cervical elements connected by pin joints. The stiffness properties of the neck were represented by rubber blocks mounted between each pair of vertebrae, as well as by muscle substitutes between the head and the first thoracic vertebra (T1). The muscle substitutes consist of cables connected to a unit containing springs and a damper. The neck was validated against volunteer test data ( j v of 7 km/h) and compared with the kinematics of the Hybrid III dummy. The new neck was tested as a part of a new dummy (BioRID) that produced a human-like motion of the T1. The kinematics of the new neck was within the corridor of the volunteers, during the major part of the first 250 ms of the crash event, for both displacement of the head relative to T1 and for the acceleration of the head. This applies to both duration and peak values. When compared with the new neck, the Hybrid III showed an earlier decrease of the horizontal acceleration of the head, less maximum horizontal displacement, and an earlier increase of the rearward angular displacement of the head relative to T1.