Mechanical Characterization and Finite Element Implementation of the Soft Materials Used in a Novel Anthropometric Test Device for Simulating Underbody Blast Loading

Understanding the mechanical behavior of components made from eight soft polymer materials is necessary to ensure the predictive capability of WIAMan FE models.

Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland

Anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) have been used in automotive safety research since the 1970s to predict injuries. ATDs must repeatedly perform under a dynamic range of loading rates and reliably distinguish between injuries ranging from minor to severe.

Biofidelity is an assessment of a devices' ability to replicate the kinetics and kinematics of a human subjected to identical loads. Automotive ATDs are suitable for impacts where the principle direction of force comes from the front, side or rear. However, during the recent military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) accounted for the most death and injury to Coalition troops. Military vehicles were common targets of an IED attack because of their susceptibility to underbody-blasts and the potential to inflict multiple casualties. Current whole-body ATDs have been shown to exhibit poor biofidelity due to overly-stiff behavior when subjected to highly accelerative vertical loads.