Testing of the Prototype Low-Durometer Hybrid III Neck for Improved Biofidelity

Abstract

This study is part of an ongoing research project aimed at mitigating catastrophic human neck injuries, predominantly due to neck bending, in rollover crashes. Presently, the Hybrid III dummy is considered to be the best available human surrogate for dynamic rollover tests. However, there are known biofidelity and instrumentation limitations associated with its use to predict catastrophic neck injuries in real-world rollover crashes. A previous study investigated the use of the non-biofidelic Hybrid III dummy in a dynamic rollover test to accurately predict the predominant human neck bending injury sustained in real-world rollover crashes. An empirical relationship between upper and lower Hybrid III neck loading was derived. The effects of neck preflexion angle, roof impact speed, roof crush, onset-to-peak neck axial forces and moments, and impact duration on neck bending injury were identified. Peak neck injury measures were rejected. For this study, the 67-durometer Hybrid III production neck was fabricated with more compliant 35-durometer butyl rubber in order improve the dummy biofidelity in rollover tests. The tests in the previous study were repeated. Correlations were established between the prototype and production necks. Parametric studies of the prototype neck revealed similar trends as observed with the Hybrid III production neck.