John D. Lloyd, PhD, CPE
Board Certified Ergonomist
32824 Michigan Avenue
San Antonio, Florida 33576
Tel: 813-624-8986
Email: DrJohnLloyd@Tampabay.RR.com
Estimation, Simulation, and Experimentation of a Fall from Bed
Abstract: Computer simulations using multi-body models have been extensively applied to vehicular crash testing but have rarely been applied to investigations of falls. This paper presents several such simulations of a single physical test of a Hybrid III anthropomorphic test dummy falling from bed. The effects of model position and velocity on simulated peak resultant head deceleration and head impact criterion were determined while holding all contact and model parameters constant. Body position at impact had little effect on peak deceleration (1%), while improving the direction of the impact velocity changed a 77% overestimation to a 13% underestimation. Simulating the entire fall instead of only the impact event further improved results, but required far more setup and processing time. Accurate kinematics are crucial to accurate simulation output and any computer model should be validated to repeatable experimental data to ensure an accurate representation of physical reality.
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