Human Shoulder Response to High Velocity Lateral Impact.

The armies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization need a shoulder injury criterion for the EuroSID-2re dummy that must be reliable over a large range of loading conditions, from high velocity, short duration impacts (28 m/s - 3 ms) to low velocity long, duration impacts (4 m/s - 50 ms). In the literature, the human shoulder response to lateral impact was investigated at bounds of the loading condition spectrum as previously mentioned. For the low velocities, the injuries were mainly clavicle fractures and the maximum compression between the acromion and the sternum (Cmax) was proposed as an injury criterion. For the high velocities, the typical injury was humerus fractures, including a crushed humeral head. The present study investigates the human shoulder response at an intermediate loading condition (14 m/s - 9 ms). Six lateral shoulder impact tests have been performed with three Post Mortem Human Subjects using a rigid impactor. The duration of the impact was controlled by means of an aluminum honeycomb that decelerated the impactor during the impact. The shoulder external deflection (impactor-to-sternum) ranged between 40 to 64 mm and the applied forces ranged from 4.3 kN to 8 kN. Four shoulders out of six sustained AIS2 injuries. Two acromio-clavicular joint dislocations, one clavicle fracture, and one scapula fracture were observed. Though the shoulder force responses were closer to those induced by the high velocity, short duration impacts, the injury patterns resembled those observed for low velocity, long duration loading conditions. Furthermore, the estimated acromion-to-sternum deflection values were not inconsistent with the prediction of the shoulder injury risk curve of the literature. Despite the relatively high-velocity impact (14.3 m/s), the shoulder injury mechanism appeared to be similar to those observed in the automotive field.