ASSESSING SUBMARINING AND ABDOMINAL INJURY RISK IN THE HYBRID III FAMILY OF DUMMIES. IN: SEAT BELTS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ESSENTIAL SAFETY FEATURE

The development of an abdominal injury assessment device for belt loading due to submarining is detailed in this paper. The design concept was based on research assessing the effectiveness of safety belts with the Hybrid III dummies. The following conclusions were reached: The abdomen developed has biofidelity in its force-deflection characteristics for belt loading, and can be used to determine the probability of abdominal injury when submarining occurs; installing the abdomen in the Hybrid III dummy does not change the dummy kinematics when submarining does occur; when submarining does occur, the dummy kinematics are very similar to baseline Hybrid III kinematics, except for torso angle.