Matched-Pair Rollover Impacts of Rollcaged and Production Roof Cars Using the Controlled Rollover Impact System (CRIS)

Acoustic emission signals can discriminate between compressive bone fractures and tensile ligament injuries in the spine during dynamic loading

“…In the in vivo spine, ligaments are thought to fail due to local tension resulting from spine distraction or rotation while most injuries to vertebral bodies are thought to result from compression forces (McElhaney et al, 1979;Allen et al, 1982;Yoganandan et al, 1989;White and Panjabi, 1990;Torg et al, 2002;Moffatt et al, 2003;Thompson et al, 2009). AE signals have been reported for slow compression loading of human cadaver vertebral bodies (Hasegawa et al, 1993a;1993b); however this may not be representative of most in vivo failure modes as AE signals produced by bone are a function of loading rate (Wells and Rawlings, 1985;Fischer et al, 1986), and most spinal injuries in vivo occur as a result of blunt impact (Thompson et al, 2009).…”

Cervical spinal cord deformation during simulated head-first impact injuries

“…Spinal cord injury can be sustained during head-first impact associated with tackling head-first in football, being checked head-first into the boards in hockey, diving into water that is too shallow and head-to-roof impacts in automotive rollovers (Langer et al, 2008;Mcelhaney et al, 1979;Moffatt et al, 2003;Torg et al, 1990). In these instances the cervical spine is asked to halt the momentum of the following torso and fracture of the vertebrae can occur resulting in direct bony insult to the spinal cord, which can lead to paralysis.…”

Restrained occupant protection performance under rollover conditions using an intelligent rollover protection subsystem

“…The Hybrid III test dummy has a neck that is too stiff in the vertical direction [4]. However, they have been, and continue to be, used by the automotive industry to evaluate the benefits of alternative designs under rollover conditions [5,6].…”

“…Some authors have claimed that improving the strength of the roof will not provide protection to occupants [5,6]. The claims are generally based on tests in which the Hybrid III dummy neck biofidelity is assumed, but the dummy's position is adjusted to be closer to the roof than would have resulted had the dummy been positioned with normal seating procedures used in every other industry standard test; the head would have been further away from the roof panel that was used during their tests.…”