Methodology to geometrically age human body models to average and subject-specific anthropometrics, demonstrated using a small stature female model assessed in a side impact

Abstract

The aged population has been associated with an increased risk of injury in car-crash, creating a critical need for improved assessment of safety systems. Finite element human body models (HBMs) have been proposed, but require representative geometry of the aged population and high mesh quality. A new hybrid Morphing-CAD methodology was applied to a 26-year-old (YO) 5^th percentile female model to create average 75YO and subject-specific 86YO HBMs. The method achieved accurate morphing targets while retaining high mesh quality. The three HBMs were integrated into a side sled impact test demonstrating similar kinematic response but differing rib fracture patterns.

Keywords:

• Aged human body model
• small stature female
• side-impact
• subject-specific model
• morphing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Honda R&D Americas, the Ohio State University, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for funding the study, the Global Human Body Model Consortium for use of the HBM, Compute Canada for computational resources, and Autoliv and the Ohio State University for the use of the subject-specific data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.