Three dimensional dynamic response of the human shoulder submitted to lateral and oblique glenohumeral joint impacts.

This paper describes tests on post mortem human subjects (PMHS) to provide biomechanical data on the shoulder for the development of a new generation of side impact crash dummies. An impacting plate was used to deliver non-injurious impacts to one shoulder and an injurious impact to the other. The body was instrumented with tri-axial accelerometers, and photographic targets which were followed by high-speed cameras. One experiment is detailed. At the end of each experiment the body was X-rayed to show fracture injuries. Three dimensional motion analysis was carried out and the relative motion of the shoulder bone evaluated. This will contribute to defining injury risk curves for the shoulder in lateral impact, and thus to developing guidelines for a new side impact dummy. For the covering abstract see ITRD E121180.