Study of the Shoulder Response to a High Speed - Short Displacement Lateral Impact using Post Mortem Human Subjects and ES-2re dummy.

A specific test setup was designed to recreate in a laboratory the features of a deforming armoured sidewall of a military veh icle submitted to an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast. A free moving impactor of 7 kg weight and 10 cm diameter contact face was propelled at 27 m/s and decelerated over 4 cm using copper tubes in order to control the penetration. Four tests on ES-2re 50 th percentile dummy were performed to check on the similarity of the impact with an IED blast case. The Y shoulder force sensor time history signals were similar to ones recorded in full-scale IED blast tests. Six tests on Post Mortem Human Subjects were performed at different violence levels. The PMHS maximum deflection s (from shoulder edge to sternum) and reaction force ranged from 3.2 cm to 4.7 cm, and from 5.7 kN to 11.7 kN, respectively. The three PMHS tests on which the highest forces were recorded presented moderate injury (AIS2) on the 2005 Abbreviated Injury Scale. Injuries were mainly humerus fractures (shaft and head). One subjec t sustained multiple fractures of the scapula. These results presented different features from those of previous studies that used lower impact rates (below 7 m/s). These results could be used to develop an AIS2+ shoulder injury criterion specific to these kinds of military impacts, using the ES-2re dummy.