Oblique Thoracic

A significant amount of data has been collected from lateral impacts conducted on human thoraxes. Substantially less data has been collected from impacts that are anterior of lateral in an oblique direction. In the past, data collected from the handful of oblique impacts performed were considered to be similar enough to the data from purely lateral impacts that the oblique data were combined with the lateral results.

Human response to oblique impact is of great importance in defining the biomechanical response of the human thorax in a vehicle crash where the loading is often anterior oblique in direction.

Objective:

• Characterize the human thoracic response to blunt impact in oblique and lateral directions.