Optimized Energy-Attenuating Seat Design for Ground Vehicles

Corvid and the University of Virginia Center for Applied Biomechanics propose to continue the development of the CAVEMAN model as a tool to improve injury assessment capabilities for warfighters exposed to underbody blast loading events.Ā To ensure proper performance of energy-attenuating (EA) seat safety for warfighters, these systems must be designed to function across the range of anthropometry and seated postures observed in the military.Ā During the Phase I effort, enhancement of the CAVEMAN model proved capable of predicting differences in pelvis injury trends resulting from changes in seated posture, aligning with measured cadaveric test data.Ā Phase II will continue to focus on the characterization and modeling of seated posture influence with an increased focus on lumbar spine injury risk as well as anthropometry induced injury changes. Development of a tool capable of warfighter injury risk prediction across anthropometric and seated posture variation is dependent on underlying injury biomechanics data sets which quantify the onset and severity of cadaveric injury in these configurations.Ā The effect of the seated posture influence on lumbar spine injuries for UBB loading has yet to be evaluated.Ā Thus, the Phase II effort will begin by expanding the component level pelvis testing protocols at UVA to include larger sections of the cadaveric spine to investigate and quantify changes in spinal injury risk as a function of seated posture.Ā Additionally, the influence of anthropometry on injury will also be analyzed from past cadaveric experimentation.Ā As cadaveric specimen availability allows, the updated UVA test protocol will be used to begin experimental testing of specimens outside of the standard 50th percentile anthropometry definition.Ā Correlation of the CAVEMAN model response to these new datasets will ensure the final injury prediction tool is capable of highlighting changes in injury risk as a function of seated posture and anthropometry throughout the human body.Ā The CAVEMAN model will be utilized to evaluate and optimize an example military EA seat design to ensure the best protection across the entire military population.Ā Finally, a protype of the updated EA mechanism will be fabricated and tested at UVA to demonstrate the improvements to warfighter survivability achieved through use of the CAVEMAN model in the EA seat design process.