This diploma thesis is devoted to the possibility of using materials for crash test dummy construction. The thesis describes how crash test dummies evolved, what crash test dummies are currently available for crash test and what they are made of. The main aim of the diploma thesis is to design materials and process for production of a crash test dummy with human-like biofidelity. The thesis describes the way which the dummy will be manufactured using duralumin, rubber, alder wood and silicone polymer or agar.

Lower leg injuries commonly occur in both automobile accidents and underbody explosive blasts, which can be experienced in war by mounted soldiers. These injuries are associated with high morbidity. Accurate methods to predict these injuries, especially in the foot and ankle, must be developed to facilitate the testing and improvement of vehicle safety systems. Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATDs) are one of the tools used to assess injury risk. These mimic the behavior of the human body in a crash while recording data from sensors in the ATD. Injury criteria for the lower leg have been developed with testing of the leg in a neutral posture, but initial posture may affect the likelihood of lower leg injury. In this thesis, the influence of initial posture on key injury assessment criteria used in crash testing with ATDs was examined. It was determined that these criteria are influenced by ATD leg posture, but further work is necessary to determine if the changes in outcome correspond to altered injury risk in humans when the ankle is in the same postures. In order to better quantify the forces acting on various areas of the foot and correlate those with injury, allowing for development of new criteria, a purpose built force sensor was created. An array of these sensors was incorporated into a boot and used to instrument an ATD leg during impact testing. The sensors provided useful information regarding the force distribution across the sole of the foot during an impact. A numerical simulation of the active material in the sensor was also created to better understand the effect of shear loading on the sensor. This work furthers the understanding of lower leg injury prediction and develops a tool which may be useful in developing accurate injury criteria for the foot and lower leg. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / This work investigates how the posture of the lower leg of a crash test dummy can influence the interpretation of crash test results. A tool was created to measure forces acting on the foot during testing. The force measurement uses a material which changes resistance when it is compressed.

Millions of square feet of mechanically stabilized earth retaining wall are constructed annually in the United States. When used in highway fill applications in conjunction with bridges, these MSE walls are typically constructed with a roadside barrier system supported on the edge of the wall. This barrier system generally consists of a traffic barrier or bridge rail placed on a continuous footing or structural slab. The footing is intended to reduce the influence of barrier impact loads on the retaining wall system by distributing the load over a wide area and to provide stability for the barrier against sliding or overturning. The proper design of the roadside barrier, the structural slab, and the MSE wall system requires a good understanding of relevant failure modes, how barrier impact loads are transferred into the wall system, and the magnitude and distribution of these loads. In this study, a procedure is developed that provides guidance for designing: 1. the barrier-moment slab, 2. the wall reinforcement, and 3. the wall panels. These design guidelines are developed in terms of AASHTO LRFD procedures. The research approach consisted of engineering analyses, finite element analyses, static load tests, full-scale dynamic impact tests, and a full-scale vehicle crash test. It was concluded that a 44.5 kN (10 kips) equivalent static load is appropriate for the stability design of the barrier-moment slab system. This will result in much more economical design than systems developed using the 240 kN (54 kips) load that some user agencies are using. Design loads for the wall reinforcement and wall panels are also presented.

Zugl.: München, Universiẗat der Bundeswehr, Diss., 2007.

Zugl.: Hannover, Univ., Diss., 2008

Stuttgart, Univ., Diss., 2003.

Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2001--Braunschweig.

Submitted by Diogo Barreiros (diogo.barreiros@ufba.br) on 2017-02-09T19:14:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoMestrado_Germano_Romera_UFBA_28Fev2011.pdf: 11590020 bytes, checksum: 78ab5fa80d846a7cf6ce61f58b1e4a63 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vanessa Reis (vanessa.jamile@ufba.br) on 2017-02-10T12:01:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoMestrado_Germano_Romera_UFBA_28Fev2011.pdf: 11590020 bytes, checksum: 78ab5fa80d846a7cf6ce61f58b1e4a63 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-10T12:01:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoMestrado_Germano_Romera_UFBA_28Fev2011.pdf: 11590020 bytes, checksum: 78ab5fa80d846a7cf6ce61f58b1e4a63 (MD5) / Existe atualmente na indústria automotiva a necessidade de realizar a medição da movimentação da junta telescópica da coluna de direção em testes de impacto frontal veicular no que se refere ao atendimento às normas de segurança. Trata-se de uma medição problemática em função das características do teste, que envolve elevadas desacelerações, magnitude mensurada que se altera muito rápida e drasticamente, tempo de aquisição dos dados muito pequeno e necessidade de amostragens elevadas para que a medição seja confiável. Os sistemas de medição em uso têm se mostrado deficientes em vários aspectos, inclusive no que concerne à robustez necessária, ou são muito caros. O presente trabalho visa ao desenvolvimento de um sistema de medição para realizar esta tarefa e que supere as restrições dos sistemas atuais, inclusive no quesito custo. Para tal, foi realizada ampla pesquisa conceitual sobre princípios de funcionamento de sensores lineares, culminando na seleção do método de se utilizar os sinais de aceleração integrados no tempo. Erros relacionados a este método de medição também foram analisados e levados em consideração na definição do sistema de medição. A fim de se poder avaliar o método de medição proposto em condições mais próximas possíveis do teste veicular, uma bancada foi projetada e construída para validação. A bancada precisou representar condições que permitam avaliar o sistema de medição para as condições às quais este seria submetido em um teste veicular. Aplicativos computacionais auxiliaram no dimensionamento da bancada e seus componentes, sendo também reportadas nesse trabalho as etapas mais importantes do projeto. Uma vez construída uma bancada pendular, utilizou-se de equipamentos já disponíveis no mercado para a montagem do sistema de medição a ser analisado. Foram utilizados acelerômetros, equipamento de aquisição de dados e câmeras digitais de alta velocidade na aquisição de dados da bancada. As características de resposta do sistema de medição foram avaliadas em função de diversos parâmetros inerentes ao processo de aquisição dos dados, qualidade do sistema de medição e variáveis do processo de integração da aceleração no domínio do tempo. Analisando os resultados obtidos dos ensaios, foi possível concluir que o método de integrar sinais de aceleração no tempo apresenta boas perspectivas de poder ser utilizado em testes de impacto veicular frontal. É esperado, com este trabalho, gerar o incentivo a novas pesquisas referentes ao método de medição de deslocamento por meio da integração de sinais obtidos de acelerômetros.

Ce travail de thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre du développement d’un nouvel outil d’analyse et d’exploitation des expérimentations biomécaniques sur corps donnés à la science. Ces expérimentations pleine échelle, comme la reconstitution complète d’un accident réel, ou dit ‘fractionné’, comme l’investigation du comportement mécanique d’une articulation ou la validation d’un modèle éléments finis, utilisent des corps entier ou des segments anatomiques. L’exploitation de ces essais englobe l’analyse des résultantes accélérométriques et des vidéos rapides. Dans tous les cas l’objectif est de saisir les mécanismes lésionnels mis en jeu : si l’autopsie finale donne le bilan complet des lésions provoquées par l’essai expérimental, il est souvent complexe de retrouver la séquence chronologique d’apparition des lésions, voire de localiser anatomiquement cette lésion. Les méthodes actuelles souffrent d’un manque dans l’identification des lésions sur le traitement du signal : l’identification et la localisation temporelle d’une lésions sur un signal permettrait d’affiner la compréhension des mécanismes de destructions du corps humain et de compléter la validation des modèles éléments finis du corps humain. Les signaux accélérométriques issus de la biomécanique de chocs étant non stationnaires et fortement transitoires c’est vers le traitement du signal temps-fréquence que nous somme allé chercher de quoi localiser et discriminer l’apparition d’une lésion sur un signal. C’est plus précisément à partir de la transformée en ondelette continue que nous avons définit un critère de force de transitoire : un scalaire dépendant du temps reflète l’aspect transitoire du signal sur la bande fréquentielle supérieur du spectre temps-fréquence. Cette utilisation simple de la transformée temps échelle va être appliquée à deux structures critiques en biomécanique : le thorax, en tant que structure supportant les organes vitaux et faisant l’objet de moyen de protection spécifique, et le membre inférieur, en tant que premier segment anatomique touché en choc piéton. Dans le cas du thorax, le critère d’estimation de la force d’un transitoire a permis de cartographier de trajet d’un signal transitoire généré par la fracture d’une côte : ce résultat critique permettra de réduire l’instrumentation en biomécanique du thorax tout en en améliorant l’efficacité en terme de détection et localisation de fracture. Dans le cas du membre inférieur, le critère en transitoire a permis de discriminer les signaux transitoires provoqués par une fracture osseuse de ceux provoqué par une avulsion ligamentaire. L’accès à la distinction os/ligament est une avancée majeure dans l’exploitation des expérimentations biomécaniques sur le membre inférieur : les lésions pourront être associées plus facilement à une source lésionnelle et l’accès potentiel à l’état lésionnel de l’articulation du genou permettra de compléter la validation d’un modèle éléments finis. En conclusion cette thèse pose les bases de l’application de méthodes temps échelle à la biomécanique des chocs et permet d’analyser les signaux transitoires générés par les lésions pour améliorer leur localisation anatomique et temporelle. Ce travail très investigatoire devrait permettre de mettre au point un véritable outil d’exploitation expérimental à l’avenir. / This work introduces a new tool to be used in biomechanical experiment based on human surrogates. Those xperiments need human bodies or anatomic segments. They can be ‘full scale’when dealing with crash reconstruction or ‘sub system’ when dealing with any investigation that focuses on mechanical behavior of biological structure. Actual means of post processing of these experiments include accelerometers signal processing, necropsy and fast video recording. The objectives are usually to understand all injury mechanisms. The final necropsy indicates a listing of all injuries sustained by a human surrogate and an important issue is to recover the chronology of these injuries. Current signal post processing methods lack any injury identification system. Accelerometric signals recorded during impact biomechanical tests are definitely non stationary. We propose to use an approach based on time frequency visualization in order to detect and characterize any injury occurrence within those signals. More precisely we applied continuous wavelet transform and introduced a new criterion that quantifies any transient, or singularity, of the signal: we made the hypothesis that singularities are images of injury occurrence. The quantification of the singularity is calculated from the amount of high frequency contained in the signal. The criterion is applied to two anatomical structures of the human body. Firstly on the thorax, as it supports all vital organs and it is the object of intense safety system development. Secondly the criterion is applied on the lower limb, as it s the primary impacted structure during car/pedestrian collision. The application of the transient criterion to the thorax showed that transient signal caused by rib fractures can be tracked down. The knowledge of the path of the transient signal through the thorax lead to a better understanding of the injury mechanism of the rib. Detection and localization of the fracture rib is then improved and further instrumentation for similar biomechanical test could be tremendously reduced in the future. In the case of the lower limb, the transient criterion was used to localize in time any injury occurrence. Moreover the criterion enabled to discriminate ligament failure from bone fracture. This differentiation gives access to the chronology of injury occurrence during sub system impact test or full scale car crash reconstruction. The knowledge of such an internal chronology can lead to car improvement and further validation tool for finite element modes. In conclusion this work introduces a new application of time scale representation to impact biomechanics. Transient signals coming from injury can be localized in time and the origin of the injury can be determined. This preliminary study can be further completed to build an actual tool for the post processing and exploitation of impact biomechanical experiments.

This thesis is devoted to the design model of the lower limbs crash test dummies. It describes how the dummy developed historically, what are currently available for crash tests, what they are made and what their future will be. The main motive of the work is to design a model of lower limb for crash tests, with emphasis on the human anatomy. The work is characterized by how the figurine is produced using the form from material Thermolyne Clear, wood as a substitute human bones and the agar substitutes such as human muscle.