Use of Upper and Lower Neck Load Cell Data From the Hybrid III Dummy to Assess Whiplash Injury Risk

Whiplash associated disorders (WAD) of the neck continue to represent a significant societal problem with associated costs estimated at over $5 billion annually. Recent dramatic increases in whiplash-related research has produced some interesting new findings related to its injury mechanism. It has been shown in human volunteer and cadaver experiments that the human head-neck structure often exhibits a transient S-shape during the initial kinematic response (Grauer et al. 1997; Luan et al. 2000; Ono et al. 1997; Yoganandan et al. 1998). Such a finding has significant impact on the injury risk assessment using the instrumented anthropomorphic test dummies in vehicular or sled testing. Unlike the recently developed dummy necks for rear impact testing, such as BioRID and TRID, the Hybrid III neck does not exhibit an S-shape curvature or the so-call “retraction” motion in rear impact testing. Numerous studies have reported that the Hybrid III neck is too stiff for low-speed rear impact testing (Svensson et al. 2000; Yoshida and Tsutsumi, 2001). Nevertheless, the Hybrid III is still being used for motor vehicle safety evaluation in rear impact as it is the only dummy neck that has been incorporated in the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).