Injuries sustained by children in auto crashes follow patterns that are different from those for adults. Age clearly has an effect on both the mechanisms and the tolerances of injury. A child's neck is not fully developed and is highly susceptible to dislocations and even decapitations, whereas an adult's neck is well developed and more resistant to injury. A search through the engineering and medical literature has revealed only a handful of experimental tests attempting to quantify the tolerance of the cervical spine to tensile loading. These tests were limited to a small number of quasi-static cadaver and volunteer tests, a single high-rate dynamic test, plus a few crash reconstructions using the Hybrid III dummy. In addition, there is a paucity of data on the tolerance of pediatric cervical injuries. This project is aimed at determining neck injury criteria for the pediatric spine.
The aim i s to determine the tensile strength of cervical spines in baboon cadaver s. W e are testing the hypothesis that younger age specimens have less strength but more ductility characteristics than adult specimens. We are also examining the failure patterns and mechanisms of injury that might occur at different ages. Therefore, the ultimate goal is to obtain age scaling laws for cervical spine tensile failure characteristics so that they may be applied in injury prevention strategies for the human pediatric population. The results should provide data for the validation of test dummies and computer models, the development of injury prevention schemes, and the evolution of better injury management and care strategies. FUNDING Grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and NIH grant RR00166.
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