Enhanced FAA-Hybrid III Numerical Dummy Model in Madymo for Aircraft Occupant Safety Assessment

To improve survivability and to minimize the risk of injury to occupants in helicopter crash events, a complete Cabin Safety System concept including safety features and an enhanced FAA-Hybrid III dummy were developed within the HeliSafe project. A numerical tool was also created and validated to allow simulations of various crash scenarios. The goal of these simulations is to predict and optimize the response of the occupant in its interactions with the safety features in crash conditions. During this project, available real world helicopter crash cases were analyzed and aviation relevant human injury criteria defined. Following this, an enhanced FAA-Hybrid III dummy was defined. This dummy was used to evaluate the advanced restrained systems developed in HeliSafe in cockpit and cabin mock-up tests. This paper describes briefly the dummy hardware modifications and instrumentation and presents the validation of the numerical dummy model developed for the MADYMO software package (Mathematical Dynamical Models). MADYMO is a worldwide standard for occupant safety analysis. An application with the full-scale cockpit mock-test illustrates the use and the benefits of such a research and development tool. The enhanced FAA-Hybrid III dummy and its numerical MADYMO model have proven to be a valuable research and certification tools to assess helicopter and aerospace occupant safety.