RESEARCH

Pediatric Archive and Text Project

Southn Consortium for Injury Biomechanics

When and how pediatric injuries occur is one of the most rapidly emerging areas of crash injury research. Little published data exist that describe the structural, material and mechanical properties of children as they age and grow. Consolidation and analysis of these properties will provide information for scientific investigators, those involved in rulemaking and injury criteria development, anthropomorphic dummy designers, and those involved in designing and developing child injury interventions. Together, all of this will markedly improve motor vehicle safety effectiveness measures taken to protect the younger population. In addition, consolidation of this information will help avoid duplication of previous research, and identify critical gaps in the data for future funding and research

The team is also assisting in the design and development of suitable advanced child ATDs and is helping determine appropriate tolerance values for use with these devices.

The Pediatric Archive and Text will provide :

•Epidemiology of child injury in motor vehicle crashes;

•A review and analysis of experimental child injury research and field studies;

•Pediatric anthropometry (based on known experimental datasets);

•Pediatric injury kinematics;

•Pediatric structural properties;

•Material properties of pediatric tissues as a child ages; and,

•Review and analysis of currently available computational models

Once this work has been completed and the Archive published, it is our goal to develop and maintain a Pediatric Data Repository that will include all anthropometry data, raw data, meshes, geometry and actual models, and data described in the text. This Archive will contribute directly to the long-term development of a virtual child model and provide a resource for development and evaluation of the Hybrid III type Six-Year-Old Child Dummy, NHTSA’s current six year old dummy development project.