Citation

Schmidt AL, Ortiz-Paparoni MA, Shridharani JK, Nightingale RW, Bass CR. Traffic Injury Prev. 2018; 19(6): 657-663.

Affiliation

Injury Biomechanics Laboratory. Department of Biomedical Engineering , Duke University , Durham , NC , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15389588.2018.1480832

PMID

29927682

Abstract

The Hybrid III (HIII) dummy is one of the most widely used anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) in the world, and researchers have found a variety of uses for it outside of its original purpose as an automotive crash test dummy. These expanded roles have introduced situations outside the dummy's original design parameters, where a number of tests must be run in relatively rapid succession or where it may not be possible to control the temperature of the test environment.

OBJECTIVE: This study has two aims. The first is to determine how the duration of the time interval between tests affects the axial compression performance of the HIII neck. The second is to quantify the effect of temperature on the neck's compressive stiffness through a range of temperatures relevant to indoor or outdoor testing.

METHODS: To characterize the effects of different test conditions, a series of high-rate axial compressive tests were run on a 50^th percentile male HIII neck component in a materials testing machine. Between-test recovery intervals were varied from 2 hours to 1 minute, and temperature conditions of 0°, 12.5°, 25°, and 37.5°C were tested.

RESULTS: While the duration of the recovery interval had little impact on the recorded force (less than 1%), the component did exhibit considerable strain creep over the course of the test. Temperature had a strong influence on the compressive stiffness of the component. Compared to the stiffness at 25°C (near room temperature), the stiffness of the neck at 37.5°C fell by 15%; at 0°C, the stiffness more than doubled.

CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that while the duration of the recovery interval between tests has a small influence on neck stiffness, temperature effects should not be overlooked as they influence neck compressive stiffness considerably. The relationship between recorded force and temperature is well represented by exponential decay models. These findings highlight the importance of monitoring and controlling for temperature effects during all HIII testing.

Language: en

Keywords

Compression; HYBRID III; Neck; Repeatability; Stiffness; Temperature