K2-1

Injury

Measurements

and Criteria

Kennerly H. Digges The National Crash Analysis Center The George Washington University 20101 Academic Way Ashburn, VA 22011, USA

1. SUMMARY The US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards have established injury measurements intended to insure minimum safety levels in severe crashes. These tests require crash test dummies and associated injury criteria. In the paper, the injury criteria specified in the US Department of Transportation are summarized and the research to support the criteria is cited. For complete-vehicles tested in frontal crashes, the crash test dummy measures head and thorax acceleration, thorax deflection, and femur loads. The allowable injury measures are: Head Injury Criterion (HIC) of 1000; 60Gs of acceleration and 76 millimeters of chest deflection; and 10,000 Newtons of force on the femurs. A recent addition to the frontal standard has been an instrumented neck and associated injury criteria. The neck injury criteria are: Compression - 4000 N; Tension - 3300 N; Shear - 3100 N; Flexion 410 Nm; Extension - 125 Nm. For full-vehicle side-impact tests, the thorax criterion (TTI) is based on rib and spinal acceleration. The allowable values are 85 to 90 Gs, The allowable pelvic criterion is 130 Gs of acceleration. 2. INTRODUCTION Automotive safety standards developed by the US Department of Transportation require crash testing of motor vehicles. An essential basis for passing the test is the injury measurements recorded by the crash test dummies. Safety regulations proposed in the early 1970s required a frontal crash into a rigid barrier at 56 km/hr. The Hybrid II dummy used in the tests was instrumented for measurements at three body regions - head acceleration, chest acceleration and femur load.

In the late 1980s, the Hybrid III dummy was phased into the frontal crash safety standards. This dummy provided additional measurements of chest deflection, forces and moments on the neck, and forces and moments on the lower legs. Also, in the 1980s, the Side Impact Dummy (SID) became available and was phased into the side impact standard. The SID measured accelerations, of the ribs, spine, and pelvis. The injury measurements allowed in the standards for these dummies are the most widely accepted injury criteria in the United States. The injury levels set by these tolerances do not guarantee that no injury will occur. Rather, the tolerance is set so that there may be a small injury risk of a serious injury - possibly as high as 30%. Research in biomechanics is continuing to refine human injury criteria. In this paper, the criteria used in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are summarized, along with the emerging criteria proposed for future standards. 3. HEAD INJURY The basis for head injury tolerance is the Wayne State Tolerance Curve, shown in Figure 3.1. The relationship was based on military data published earlier (Eiband, 1959), and on tests of cadaver heads. In the cadaver tests, the foreheads were impacted against rigid and padded surfaces. The linear acceleration of the head was related to whether or not the impact produced fracture of the frontal bone. The initial head injury criterion published in US standards was applied to a head form used to test vehicle interior surfaces. The criterion was a maximum of 80 Gs for not more than 3 milliseconds. The Wayne State Injury Tolerance Curve becomes asymptotic to the pulse duration

Papers presented at the RTO HFM Specialists Meeting on Models for Aircrew Safety Assessment: Uses, Limitations and Requirements, held in Ohio, USA, 26-28 October 1998, and published in RTO MP-20.

K2-2

axis at about 80 Gs. The Gadd Severity Index was a more refmed head injury criteria (Gadd, 1966). This index was based on the product of the resultant head acceleration raised to the 2.5 power and the pulse duration. The index was limited to an acceleration pulse similar to that used in the cadaver tests.
350 _ Q s .T-i 2 8 9 2al 300 250 200 150 100

is that HIC is based on skull fracture, not brain injury. In on-the-road collisions, brain injury may occur without skull fracture. Further, HIC doesnot include the detrimental effects of rotational acceleration, which has been shown to induce certain types of brain injury. Numerous other head injury criteria have been proposed, but none hasbeen accepted in US safety standards. 4. CHEST INJURY The chest injury criteria for frontal impacts was initially based on the resultant chest acceleration measured on the Hybrid II dummy. This early dummy did not have the capability of measuring chest deflection. Consequently, acceleration was the preferred tolerance measurement. In the crash tests,the dummy neededto distinguish the presenceof air bags in the vehicle. In cars of the early 1970s, the air bags reduced the chest acceleration substantially, compared with the test condition in which the dummy impacted the steering system and dashboardwithout safety belts or air bags. Therefore, high precision in the injury criteria was not mandatory for regulatory purposes. The magnitude of chest acceleration allowable for the air bag was based primarily on human volunteer tests. Military tests with harnesstype belt systems demonstrated that humans could withstand 45 Gs for short duration pulses (44 milliseconds) without injury. A human impact with distributed chest loading produced 49 GS without injury (Mertz 1971). The injury tolerance for the air bag standard was set at 60 Gs. This was in recognition that the distributed loading of the air bag was more benign than the loading in the human volunteer testing. The standard permitted the chest Gs to rise above 60 Gs for a period not more than 3 milliseconds. The 60-G chest acceleration criterion developed for air bags is not conservative for the automotive The Hybrid III belt systems of the 1990s. dummy permits a chest deflection measurement that is intended to more accurately predict injury from a variety of restraint systems. Initially, the proposed allowable chest deflection for the Hybrid III dummy was 51 millimeters for shoulder belt loading, and 76 millimeters for air bag loading. A regulation effective in the early 1990s required air bags and safety belts for the driver and front outboard passenger of all passengervehicles. The chest deflection of 76

Exceeds Tolerance

OOC Time Duration of Effective Acceleration,

15 ms.

Figure 2.1: The Wayne State Head Injury Tolerance Curve (Initial 15 milliseconds) The present Head Injury Criterion (HIC) is based on the Gadd Severity Index, modified to accommodate more complex acceleration pulses (Versace, 1971). The HIC is defined, basedon the instantaneous head acceleration (Aa) as follows:

HIC =
t2

Max t,,t, Kf2-4)[W,-4) f AR(f)W.l il

It should be noted that HIC varies depending on the selection of the time increment over which the integration is performed. Initially, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standardsrequired the HIC to be less than 1000 for all magnitudes and locations of time increments. The most recent standards have limited the time increment over which HIC can be calculated to 35 milliseconds. Mertz reanalyzed the available cadaver test data and concluded that for a HIC value of 1000, the risk of serious injury is less than 20% (Mertz, 1996). Several limitations of the HIC have been of concern to biomechanics researchers. One concern

K2-3

millimeters is allowed for the air bag only and for the air bag plus safety belts. A regulatory proposal in 1999 uses a Combined Thorax Index (CTI) which includes both chest acceleration and chest deflection. The allowed value of CT1 is 1.O. CT1 is defined as follows:

Viscous Response was found to be applicable to chest impacts in the velocity range of 2 to 20 m/s. The proposed Viscous Criterion was: [V*C]max = 1.0 m/s. A difficulty in using V*C Criterion is the limitation of crash dummies used in existing standards. The SID dummy is can not measure V*C due to limitations in instrumentation and biofidelity. The Hybrid III can measure chest compression and velocity at a central point on the sternum. The biofidelity of the Hybrid III has not been certified for the chest velocity measurement. The V*C Response is frequently computed for research purposes. However, V*C has not been required by US standards. 5. FEMUR INJURY The Hybrid II and Hybrid III dummies both have load cells in the femur to measure the axial load. The allowable femur load for frontal crashes is based on cadaver tests (Patrick, 1966, and Melvin, 1969, 1975). In most of the tests, a padded or rigid striker impacted the knee, loading the femur axially through the patella and femoral condyles. Based on the cadaver testing, the allowable femur load was specified at 10,000 Newtons. The femur injury criterion is the only lower limb measure that is used in US motor vehicle safety standards. A principal concern is that it does not adequately address injuries below the knee. These injuries are frequent, costly, and disabling. A number of improvements to the Hybrid III dummys lower limbs are now available, and associated injury criteria have been proposed for measuring knee, tibia, and ankle injuries. 6. PELVIC INJURY A pelvic injury criterion is specified in the US side impact standard. The pelvic injury criteria is based on an analysis by Haffner of lateral cadaver tests (Haffner, 1885). The allowable maximum lateral pelvic acceleration is 130 Gs. 7. NECK INJURY The Hybrid III dummy permits a six-axis load cell between bottom of the skull and the top of the neck. The federal standard for frontal air bags (FMVSS 208) specifies criteria for three forces and the fore and aft moments about the neck. The allowable values for axial compression, tension, shear, and bending moments are shown in Table 7.1.

CT1 = (Amax/Aint)

+ (Dmax/Dint)

Where: Aint = 85 Gs Dint = 102 mm. Amax = Maximum measured chest Gs Dmax = Maximum measured chest deflection, mm. With regard to the US side impact safety standard, the chest injury is based on the combined rib and spinal accelerations, measured on the Side Impact Dummy (SID). The injury tolerance is called Thoracic Trauma Index (TTI). The formula is as follows:

TTI(d)

= ?4 [G, + G,,]

Where: G, = greater of the peak accelerations of either the upper or lower ribs, expressed in Gs. G,, = the peak lower spinal acceleration in Gs. TTI was based on whole cadaver tests. In the tests, the instrumented cadavers were impacted at various speeds against rigid and padded walls and vehicle interiors. Acceleration measurements of the ribs, thoracic spine, and pelvis were made. The TTI was found to be the best function to separate injuries by severity (Morgan 1986). The standard requires a TTI of 85 to 90. The higher number is the allowable for 2 door cars. Compression tests of the human chest show a velocity dependent response. Biomechanics researchers have proposed that both compression and rate of compression should be considered in the chest injury criteria. Lau proposed a Viscous Criterion based on his analysis of cadaver and animal tests (Lau, 1986). The Viscous Response (V*C) is the product of instantaneous rate of chest deformation (V) and the instantaneous chest compression (C). The chest compression is defined as ratio of the instantaneous chest deflection to the initial chest thickness. The

K2-4

Table 7.1: Allowable Neck Loading in Federal Standard 208 Loading 1 Allowable Axial Comnression 1 4000N

biofidelity in chest deflection and deflection rate, and with associated measurementcapability will be neededto usethis criteria. The discussionsin this paper are limited to the injury criteria for a mid-size male. Additional criteria are being proposed for small female and child dummies. In addition, criteria and measurementcapabilities for the arms and lower limbs are the subjectsof sponsoredresearchby the US Department of Transportation. 9. BIBLIOGRAPHY Department of Transportation (1998) Occupant Crash Protection; Proposed Rule, Federal Register, Vol. 63, No. 18, pp. 49978, 1998. Eiband, A.M., (1959), Human Tolerance to Rapidly applied Acceleration: a Summary of the Literature, Memorandum 5-19-59E, NASA Lewis ResearchCenter, Cleveland. Gadd, P.,( 1966), Use of Weighted Injury Criterion for Estimating Injury Hazard, SAE 660793. Haffner, J. H., Marcus, J. H., and Eppinger, R. H., (1985), Synthesis of Pelvic Fracture Criteria for Lateral Impact Loading, 10 ESV Conference,. Lau, I. V., and Viano, D.C., (1986),The Viscous Criterion - Bases and applications of an Injury severity Index for Soft Tissues, SAE 861882 Melvin, J.W., etal., (1975) Impact Response and Tolerance of the Lower Extremities, 19th Stapp Car Crash Conference. Melvin, J.W., et.al., (1969), Human Head and Knee Tolerance to Localized Impacts, SAE 690477. Mertz, H. J., (1978), An Assessment of CompressiveNeck Loads Under Injury Producing Conditions, Physicians and Sports Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 11, pp. 95-106. Mertz, H. J., and Patrick, 1. M., (1971) Strength and Response of the Human Neck, SAE 710855. Mertz, J. H., Prasad,P., and Nusholtz, G., (1996), Head Injury Risks Assessment for Forehead Impacts, SAE 960099. Morgan, R. M., Marcus, J. H., and Eppinger, R. H.,

The basisfor the axial compressionallowable was the reconstruction of football injuries by Mertz (Mertz, 1978). The allowable tension and shear loads were based on reconstruction of real world collisions by Nyquest (Nyquest, 1980). Tolerance levels for fore and aft bending moments were based on human volunteer and cadaver sled tests reported by Mertz (Mertz 1971). A proposed revision to FMVSS 208 provides an optional neck injury criteria, Nij. The Nij criteria is defined by the following equation:

Nij = (Fz/ Fzc) + (My/ Myc)

The values measured on the dummy are Fz, the maximum axial force, and Mz, the maximum flexioniextension moment. The reference values are shown in Table 7.2. Table 7.2: Reference Values for Calculation Nij

~~
, I I I

Two allowable values of Nij have been proposed1.O and 1.4 (DOT 1998). In the event the Nij criteria is adopted, the allowable value will be published in the final rule, expected during 1999. 8. CONCLUSIONS Injury criteria for the head, chest and femur in frontal crasheshave been in use for more than 25 years. Improvements and refinements in these criteria are continuing to evolve. For the side impact, the injury criteria are less mature. The principal US criterion for chest injury uses rib and spinal accelerations. More recent criteria suggestthe use of thorax deflection The SID dummy is limited to and velocity. A dummy with measuring accelerations.

K2-5

(1986) Side Impact: The Bioftdelity of NHTSAs ProposedATD and Efficacy of TTY, SAE 86 1887. Nyquest, G., et. al., (1980), Correlation of Field Injuries and GM Hybrid III Dummy Responses for Lap-Shoulder Belt Restraint, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, Vol. 102, pp. 487493. Patrick, L. M., Mertz, H.J., and Kroell, C. K., (1967) , Cadaver Knee, Cheat, and Head Impact Loads, 1Ith Stapp Car Crash Conference. Versace, J., (1971) A Review of the Severity Index, SAE 7 10881.