Optimized Energy-Attenuating Seat Design for Ground Vehicles

Corvid Technologies, LLC (Corvid) and the University of Virginia Center for Applied Biomechanics (UVA-CAB) propose to develop finite element models of mounted warfighters to evaluate injury risk in underbody blast (UBB) loading events and utilize these models to improve the performance of energy-attenuating (EA) seat safety. The proposed approach will utilize a high-fidelity computational physics-based method to model the human body and EA seat using techniques previously established and employed for UBB crew injury analysis. Corvid is uniquely positioned to efficiently accomplish the objectives of this topic due to its previous involvement with human body model development, years of experience in modeling and simulation of vehicle blast events, and its in-house, high performance computing (HPC) resources and software development capabilities. Partnership with UVA-CAB will provide valuable insight into pelvis, lumbar spine, and femur injury risk though their extensive cadaveric testing background in both the UBB and automotive loading environments.