Paper Title
Development Of Three Year Old Nigerian Numerical Child Dummy Head And Validation In Frontal Impact
Abstract
Head injuries are the main cause of children fatalities and disabilities. The head finite element (FE) models remain the useful tool to investigate the injury risk of motor vehicle crash and fall scenarios. Adult head models have been developed by many researchers but child FE models need more attention. The models available in the literature were developed based on anthropometric data of some specific population. In this work a three year old child FE anthropomorphic test device (ATD) head has been developed by scaling down a Hybrid III 6 year old dummy head down to that of a three year old Nigerian child head size and weight using morphing technique, and the model was validated for frontal impact against the available data in the literature in head drop test. The peak resultant acceleration of the head in frontal impact was found to be within reported literature thresholds. The resultant acceleration was found to increase with increasing falling height. The acceleration obtained was 253.5g for the fall height of 376 mm and 126g for 130 mm falling height. The peak lateral acceleration and the peak acceleration after the main pulse for 376 mm fall height were as specified within the specification of 49CFR Part 572 Sub Part P for 3 year olds. The head model developed could therefore be useful in the vehicle safety assessment and height fall investigations of three year old children.
Keywords � anthropometry, ATD, child dummy, head drop test, morphing