Faculty Collaboration Database

Occupant Injury and Response on Oblique-Facing Aircraft Seats: A Computational Study. J Biomech Eng 2023 Feb 01;145(2)

Date

09/06/2022

Pubmed ID

36062977

DOI

10.1115/1.4055511

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85139376332 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   3 Citations

Abstract

Increased interest in the airline industry to enhance occupant comfort and maximize seating density has prompted the design and installation of obliquely mounted seats in aircraft. Previous oblique whole-body sled tests demonstrated multiple failures, chiefly distraction-associated spinal injuries under oblique impacts. The present computational study was performed with the rationale to examine how oblique loading induces component level responses and associated injury occurrence. The age-specific human body model (HBM) was simulated for two oblique seating conditions (with and without an armrest). The boundary conditions consisted of a 16 g standard aviation crash pulse, 45 deg seat orientation, and with restrained pelvis and lower extremities. The overall biofidelity rating for both conditions ranged from 0.5 to 0.7. The validated models were then used to investigate the influence of pulse intensity and seat orientation by varying the pulse from 16 g to 8 g and seat orientation from 0 deg to 90 deg. A total of 12 parametric simulations were performed. The pulse intensity simulations suggest that the HBM could tolerate 11.2 g without lumbar spine failure, while the possibility of cervical spine failure reduced with the pulse magnitude <9.6 g pulse. The seat orientation study demonstrated that for all seat angles the HBM predicted failure in the cervical and lumbar regions at 16 g; however, the contribution of the tensile load and lateral and flexion moments varied with respect to the change in seat angle. These preliminary outcomes are anticipated to assist in formulating safety standards and in designing countermeasures for oblique seating configurations.

Author List

Somasundaram K, Humm JR, Khandelwal P, Umale S, Moorcroft DM, Pintar FA

Authors

Frank A. Pintar PhD Chair, Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Karthik Somasundaram PhD Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Accidents, Traffic
Aircraft
Biomechanical Phenomena
Head
Humans
Lumbar Vertebrae