Abstract
To reduce the fatal vehicle passengers, reduce the severity of thorax injuries is an important problem. In order to investigate relation between external load and thoracic damage, animal experimental approach is necessary because of complex structure of human thoracic cage and biological function, such as blood flow and respiration. In this study, a new animal experiment model for thoracic injury was developed using a drop test system. Time histories of decelerations measured at the sternum and the spine of the two rats were compared with those of a human finite element model at the same impact condition. In each rat, the sternum accelerations had two peaks and maximum values of them were coincide with those of the table accelerations. The tendency was verified in impact simulation with the human finite element model. In order to compare the results of the rat drop test with those of the simulation with the human finite element model, scaling based on geometric similarity was applied to the acceleration data. Using the scaling technique, the maximum sternum decelerations of rats were similar to that of the human model. This result indicates that the proposed animal model might be useful for examining biomechanical response of the human thoracic injuries.
