Comparison of biomechanical head-neck responses of hybrid III dummy and whole body cadaver during inverted drops.

The anthropometric hybrid III dummy test device is the most widely used physical model to assess the injury severity during automotive crashes. The dummy was designed to replicate the human neck in flexion and frontal impacts. Various investigators have compared the dummy neck with living human and cadaveric responses in frontal impacts. However, the comparison between the whole body human cadaver and dummy under an inverted drop is currently lacking. This study was designed to review the exiting data and obtain the comparative data between the human cadaver and the dummy. The vertical whole body cadaver drops from our laboratory and literature have been used. There exists a wide variation between the human and dummy neck responses. The dummy neck was approximately two to four times stiffer under axial compression in the quasi-static or in the dynamic mode. The present comparison will provide a basis to better design the anthropometric dummies in order to obtain an improved injury assessment during inverted drops.