Presentation from Mr Moorhouse, NHTSA (GTR7-07-06):

The biofidelity programme is complete and was presented at the Brussels meeting. The work programme was now focussed on investigating the mechanism of injury and selecting appropriate injury criteria.

Neck kinematics have been measured in 8 PMHS, and the injuries have been assessed by MRI scans and necropsies and fully documented, including disc fracture, disc ruptures and soft-tissue tears. Most of the injuries were subluxations, which are minor AIS 1, but other more severe injuries occurred and have been documented. It was noted that some of the injuries were more severe that those normally associated with whiplash.

The IC-NIC (Panjabi, 2005) for each joint was compared qualitatively with the injury level.

The physiological range of motion was set conservatively, based on mean ± one standard deviation from the Panjabi results. The IV-NIC only evaluates intervertebral rotation, so NHTSA have calculated analogous parameters for shear and axial displacements. These, and combinations of these, will also be assessed, along with strain and strain rate. These will then be correlated with the dummy measurements that were taken in the same test conditions. This will give injury risk curves for the PMHS, and for the dummy. It was noted that the method to correlate the PMHS to dummy IRC is not decided yet.

Mr Donnelly noted that NHTSA would like to run PMHS tests in a standard car seat, with the same PMHS instrumentation set-up, if budget allows.