Citation

Bass CR. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 1998; 1998: 1628-1645.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examines and compares the response of two upper extremity test devices under driver-side air bag deployment to contribute to the development of dummy surrogates for the investigation of primary contact forearm injuries during air bag deployments. The first of these test devices, the SAE 5th Percentile Female Arm (SAE Arm), is an anthropomorphic representation of a small female forearm and upper arm that is instrumented with load cells, accelerometers and potentiometers to enable the determination of upper extremity kinematics and dynamics. The second, the Research Arm Injury Device (RAID), is a simple beam test device designed for detailed investigation of moments and accelerations resulting from close contact in the initial stages of air bag deployment. The RAID includes strain gauges distributed along its length to measure the distribution of moment applied by the air bag deployment. The study used four air bags representing a wide range of aggressivities in the current automobile fleet. The upper extremity position was a 'natural' driving posture when turning left with one hand across the steering wheel. The forearm was positioned directly on the air bag module with the forearm oriented perpendicular to the air bag module tear seam. For the SAE Arm, the humerus was oriented normal to the steering wheel. Tests with the SAE Arm were performed both with the arm attached to a 5th Percentile Female Hybrid III dummy and with the arm mounted to an articulated test fixture. In addition to the dynamic tests, a detailed comparison of the inertial properites of each of the test devices with the inertial properties of a typical small female was performed.