Numerical Simulation of Non-lethal Kinetic Projectiles Blunt Impact on Dummy Chest

Abstract

To verify the effectiveness of applying hybrid III dummy to assess blunt impact injury of non-lethal kinetic projectiles(NLKPs)and reveal the difference between blunt impact of NLKPs and high-mass low-speed impact in the field of vehicle safety, the dynamic process of NLKPs and high-mass impactor impacting on Hybrid III 50th dummy were analyzed by numerical simulation method. The risk of chest injury was evaluated numerically based on viscous criterion. The results show that the chest compression and the max of viscous criterion of hybrid III dummy under the blunt impact of NLKPs are within the validation corridors of Post Mortem Human Subjects(PMHS)experiments, which indicates that the simulation method is an effective substitute for injury assessment. Under the same initial kinetic energy, the impact process of NLKPs would be shorter, the peak impact force would be higher and the energy attenuation would be faster. There would be rapid conversion of the kinetic energy and the internal energy in part of the thorax under NLKPs impact which causes superficial injuries and the wound surface is larger than the cross-section area of the projectile. The stress which is first concentrated at the front corner of ribs which would cause fracture. By contrast, most of the kinetic energy of high-mass impactor is converted to the internal energy of the thorax resulting injury types are mainly intra-thoracic fracture and internal organs injuries. When the velocity of the L5 projectile at 30 g exceeds 74.6 m/s, the probability of observing 2 or more rib fractures or a sternum fracture would exceed 50%.