Biomechanical Model of Human-like Arm for a Crash Test

Safety of the occupant during the crash is very essential design element. Many researches have been investigated in reducing the fatal injury of occupant. They are focusing on the development of a dummy in order to obtain the real human like motion[1]. However, they have not considered the arm resist motion during the car accident. In this study, we would like to suggest the importance of the reactive force of the arm in a car crash. The effects of reactive force acting on the human upper limb were investigated using the biomechanical model of upper limb and a Hybrid III dummy. A three-dimensional computer model using Pam-Crash/Safe was developed that estimates the influence of a arm resist motion. Also, human arm muscle model was developed in order to verify the biomechanical model of upper extremity. Through the experimental sled test of the dummy equipped human-like arm, the theoretical arm model developed in this paper was compared. The results showed that without seat belt, the reactive force of human arm reduced the head, chest, and femur injury, and the flexion moment of the neck is higher than that of the conventional dummy.