Child Dummy Neck Evaluation

Research has been performed to compare the head and neck response of the Q3 dummy and the Hybrid III 3-year-old dummy subject to loading by a deploying side air bag. Substantial kinematic and kinetic differences were observed due to differences in head geometry and mass, and neck stiffness between the two dummies. The Hybrid III head is 18 % heavier than the Q3 and resulted in peak head center of gravity accelerations significantly lower (p = 0.01) than those observed in the Q3. The stiffer Hybrid III neck resulted in 41 ± 29 % higher neck flexion moment compared to the Q3. While the stiffness properties for the Q3 neck are similar in all directions, the Hybrid III neck has preferred anterior-posterior stiffness properties. This difference was observed in tests where lateral loading of the head forced lateral bending in which the Hybrid III recorded a 101 ± 80 % higher lateral bending moment compared to the Q3. Although there is considerable uncertainty as to the validity of published injury criteria due to the lack of child biomechanical data, these tests suggest that separate injury criteria are needed for each dummy.

REFERENCES:

Duma, S.M., Crandall, J.R., Pilkey, W.D., "Comparison of the Hybrid III and the Q3 Three Year Old Dummy Head and Neck Interaction with a Deploying Side Air Bag," Proceedings of the 1^st Child Occupant Protection in Motor Vehicle Crashes Conference, Barcelona, Spain, September, 1999.

Duma, S.M., Crandall, J.R., Pilkey, W.D., Seki, A., Aoki, T., "Dynamic Response of the Hybrid III 3 Year Old Dummy Head and Neck During Side Air Bag Loading," Proceedings of the 42^nd Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine Conference, Charlottesville, Virginia, October, 1998.

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Virginia Tech / Wake Forest University Center for Injury Biomechanics