EVALUATION OF THE DYNAMIC AND KINEMATIC PERFORMANCE OF THE THOR DUMMY: NECK PERFORMANCE

The objective of this study is to evaluate the frontal head-neck performance of the THOR neck with respect to the human frontal head-neck performance and the Hybrid-III frontal head-neck performance. For this purpose, tests were carried out with an isolated THOR and Hybrid-III-neck system on a HyGe sled. The acceleration applied to the dummy head-neck system is comparable to the T1 acceleration experienced by volunteers during testing at the Naval Biodynamics Laboratory in the 80-ties. The Hybrid-III and THOR neck response is compared with human neck response corridors. The study revealed that, although the THOR neck needs some further improvement, its response during frontal flexion is much more biofidelic than the Hybrid-III neck response.