Investigation of factors affecting surrogate limb measurements in the testing of landmine protected vehicles

Landmine protected vehicles (LPVs) are designed to minimise the risk of injury to occupants. In order to quantify this risk, human surrogate measurement devices (HSMDs) are placed in the vehicle to record data which is then related to risk of injury using injury criteria that have been defined in test standards. Experience in testing LPVs and studies conducted have indicated that the lower leg is very vulnerable to injury and much speculation exists over the tibia injury criterion and the lower limb surrogates with which this criterion is measured. A lower limb impactor (LLI) system was thus designed to test lower limb surrogates and to explore factors that may affect the measurements obtained using the surrogates. The factors that were investigated in this study were the position of the lower limb, the wearing of a boot and the hip and knee joint stiffness. Simulations detailed in [6] were used as the basis for the experiments conducted to examine the effect that lower limb position has on the lower tibia axial force. For all but one case the experimental and simulated results were similar, with the conventional seating position resulting in the highest axial tibia force which was decreased by approximately half when the seating position was altered.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Whyte, Tamlin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Nurick, Gerald N

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5452

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/5452