Evaluation of finite element human body models in lateral padded pendulum impacts to the shoulder

Abstract

Lateral impacts are of great concern for occupant safety. In order to design side protective systems, it is of importance that the timing of the body and the head should be well predicted. Today, experimental and numerical Anthropometric Test Devices (ATDs) are used as human substitutes to predict the human kinematics. As a complement to the ATDs, numerical Human Body Models (HBMs) are used as research tools. The objective of this study is to compare the loading and kinematics of the shoulder complex in three different HBMs with published biological experiments. This study also compares the models with each other and with two numerical ATDs. The results indicate that no HBM can be used for detailed prediction of the kinematics of the human shoulder complex. However, in the presented statistical analysis, all HBMs show a better overall correlation to experiments compared to the numerical ATDs.